Georgia’s mediation in the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is unfeasible, Georgia’s Parliament Speaker Sergi Kapanadze told APA’s local bureau.
“At the time of the escalation over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in April last year, careless statements were made that Georgia should mediate. I would very much like Georgia to play a mediating role. However, it is a pity that the current situation over the conflict makes Tbilisi’s mediation impossible,” he said.
The vice-speaker thinks that practically there is no international mediation for the conflict.
“Despite the OSCE Minsk Group and the UN Security Council’s resolutions, there is no real international mediation. The more actively international organizations involved in resolving conflict, the more likely are they to be eliminated. The parties cannot resolve the conflict without international mediation,” he said.
According to Kapanadze, one common characteristic of the existing conflicts in the South Caucasus is that their resolution is improbable without Russia’s involvement.
“Unfortunately, Russia’s destructive role is an obstacle to the conflict being resolved peacefully,” he said.
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.
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