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Baku: Meeting of Azerbaijani, Armenian FMs to focus on current state of negotiation process

11 July 2017 11:35 (UTC +04:00)

The current state of the negotiation process over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s settlement, as well as holding of talks in a serious and effective manner will be the main topics of the meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in Brussels, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry told APA.

The meeting will take place on July 11 at 19:00 local time, Hajiyev said.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will today meet with his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian in Brussels under the mediation and in the presence of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

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 December 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.