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Armenian armed forces should withdraw from occupied territories, Azerbaijani FM says

02 October 2014 14:17 (UTC +04:00)

Strasbourg. Fuad Gulubeyli – APA. Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov answered European MPs’ questions following his speech at the plenary meeting of PACE within Azerbaijan’s chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Mammadyarov said he could answer the question about settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and frozen conflicts as the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan not in his capacity of Chairman of the CoE Committee of Ministers, APA’s Europe bureau reports.

“If the question is about frozen conflicts, I have to answer this question as the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan. We have recently dedicated most of our discussions and speeches in the CoE Committee of Ministers to the Ukraine crisis. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia has remained unresolved for more than twenty years. The conflict was temporarily suspended as ceasefire was declared in 1994. The Armenian Armed Forces violated the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis were expelled from all the territories occupied by the Armenians. As you know, the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, France, and the United States, has begun dealing with the resolution of the conflict since 1994. I would not say that there is any progress on this issue. Unfortunately, our territories are still under occupation, internally displaced persons can’t return to their homes. It is very risky and complicated issue in terms of regional security and a major negative case for the sustainable development of the region. We want to work with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on the settlement of the conflict. The main thing for us is that the Armenian armed forces should withdraw from the occupied territories and these territories should be returned to Azerbaijan,” he said.