The Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace has released a statement expressing support for the US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group (MG) Ambassador Richard Hoagland.
APA presents the statement:
“We, as the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace, expressed our concern in the statement spread on March 10, 2017 that war rhetoric in the statements of the presidents of the two conflicting states may lead to the breach of stability and security in South Caucasus. The Platform called upon the parties to immediately restore the peace negotiations on substantive base, which is the only solution of the conflict. It is notable that on March 11, 2017, after a day of the statement, the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Richard Hoagland stated the importance of starting talks in press conference.
The Platform for Peace supports the statement by the American co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Richard Hoagland completely; calls upon the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to start negotiations without postponing within the norms of international law aimed at fair solution of the conflict.
For the purposes of contributing to a peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace was established on December 6, 2016. The Platform is an initiative of the citizens of Azerbaijan and Armenia who wish to contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
The initiative on the creation of the Platform has generated the interest of the international community as well as attracted the high level of public attention in both conflicting states. A large number of well-known experts highly appreciated this initiative and stressed the very special role of the above-mentioned peacekeeping initiative in the process of the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
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.
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