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French senator calls for restoration of Azerbaijanâ€™s territorial integrity

13 March 2017 09:51 (UTC +04:00)

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict must be resolved peacefully and the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan must be restored, said André Reichardt, president of the France-Caucasus Friendship Group in the French Senate.

A meeting was held Monday at the Azerbaijani Parliament with members of the France-Caucasus Friendship Group.

Participating in the meeting were Azerbaijani MPs Javanshir Feyziyev and Samad Seyidov, and from the French side, André Reichardt and Friendship Group member Nathalie Goulet, and others, the parliament told APA.

Addressing the meeting, Reichardt said that France realizes that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the worst problem faced by Azerbaijan.

“We, as well as everyone sitting here, are already sufficiently informed about it. Since we know Azerbaijan better, we’ll offer our support to Azerbaijan’s cause of justice,” he said.

Azerbaijani lands are under occupation, said the French senator, calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict, the liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani territories and the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

“Azerbaijan must regain control of its lands. The incidents that we witnessed in April of last year gave the signal that the concern had already reached its peak. We’re ready to make our own contributions to resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” added the senator.

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.