Domestic

Home page

Domestic

Yerevan tries to inhibit substantive talks on Karabakh conflict

29 September 2016 13:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Malahat Najafova – APA. Armenia is trying to inhibit substantive talks on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by carrying out various provocations such as military exercises in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, told APA on Thursday.

He commented on Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian’s speech at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Armenian FM’s speech was again aimed at misleading the international community, noted the spokesman.

“In his speech, Nalbandian deliberately distorted the essence and results of the meetings held in Vienna and St. Petersburg,” said Hajiyev.

He added that the main result of the Saint Petersburg meeting was that the conflicting parties—Azerbaijan and Armenia—must begin substantive negotiations through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group.

“And the final result of the substantive negotiations is about the change of the status quo and liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani lands. The substantive negotiations process is ongoing. But the Armenian side is trying to inhibit the process by carrying out various provocations such as military exercises in the occupied Azerbaijani territories and other provocative acts,” said the spokesman.

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.