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Egemen BagiÅŸ: â€œThe OSCE Minsk Group should either do its work or confess that it canâ€™t do itâ€

22 March 2012 13:11 (UTC +04:00)

Istanbul. Mais Alizadeh â€“ APA. â€œWe consider that the OSCE Minsk Group is very passive. The Minsk Group should either achieve a result for establishing consensus between Azerbaijan and Armenia or say that â€œwe canâ€™t do this work, let someone else do this workâ€. It must either do this work or confess that it canâ€™tâ€, Turkish European Union Minister Egemen BagiÅŸ told APAâ€™s Istanbul correspondent.

He said that Turkey accepted Azerbaijanâ€™s joy and grief as its joy and grief: â€œThe occupation of 20% of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia afflicts most of all us. Thatâ€™s why I said that Armenia had to withdraw from Karabakh than Eurovision. Then the conflict would have been settledâ€.

Asked â€œWill Turkey start to press the EU member countries which adopted â€œgenocideâ€ decisions, to abolish the decisions if the European Court on Human Rights passes a decision on limitation of freedom and expression by Switzerlandâ€, the minister said: â€œSwitzerland is not EU member, thatâ€™s why its decisions canâ€™t be related to union countries. The prohibition of Switzerland and other countries to discuss the historical issues is contrary to the EU values and fundamental philosophy of the Council of Europe. Such decision is impossibleâ€.