Intensive talks to continue after presidential elections in Azerbaijan, Armenia – MFA

Intensive talks to continue after presidential elections in Azerbaijan, Armenia – MFA
# 07 February 2018 13:41 (UTC +04:00)

An agreement was reached to continue intensive negotiations on the basis of existing ideas and proposals after the presidential elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, told APA on Wednesday.

“The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group were received by President Ilham Aliyev as part of their trip to Azerbaijan. A detailed discussion was held with the co-chairs on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict based on the views expressed during the Krakow meeting,” Hajiyev said.

As a country that has suffered from occupation and aggression, Azerbaijan supports the efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by means of substantial and logical negotiations in a timely manner, stressed the spokesman.

“As repeatedly stated by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs at the level of heads of state, the status quo that is based on occupation is unacceptable. The status quo must be changed. To this end, a complete and unconditional withdrawal must be ensured of Armenian armed forces from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884,” Hajiyev added.

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.

Nagorno Garabagh

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