Parliamentary diplomacy can positively affect the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said the president of France-Caucasus Friendship Group in the French Senate André Reichardt.
There is a need to intensify contacts to resolve the conflict, Reichardt, who is leading a French delegation during a visit to Azerbaijan, said at a meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on Friday, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told APA.
The senator said the French delegation’s visit to Azerbaijan aims to get detailed information about Azerbaijan-France ties and the settlement process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Minister Mammadyarov in turn stated that in order to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, Armenian troops should be withdrawn from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, and refugees and IDPs should return to their homes.
The Azerbaijani FM urged Armenia to demonstrate political will in order to achieve progress in the settlement process.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.
A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.
The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.
Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in Dec.1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.
Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.
Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Follow us on Telegram
t.me/apanewsaz
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
