Azerbaijan calls on EU to take unified approach to issue of countries’ territorial integrity - UPDATED

Azerbaijan calls on EU to take unified approach to issue of countries’ territorial integrity - <span style="color: red;">UPDATED
# 12 April 2017 12:05 (UTC +04:00)

The European Union should take a unified approach to the issue of territorial integrity and sovereignty of countries within their internationally recognized borders, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said at a meeting with his Estonian counterpart Sven Mikser in Warsaw April 12, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told APA.

Mammadyarov stressed that in order to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and to create an environment for regional cooperation armed forces of Armenia have to withdraw from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

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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12:43

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on Tuesday met with his Estonian counterpart Sven Mikser in Warsaw April 12.

“On the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership meeting in Warsaw April 12, Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov. The sides discussed bilateral relations, cooperation within the Eastern Partnership and EU-Azerbaijan ties,” Estonia’s Foreign Ministry has tweeted.

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