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Baku hopes Yerevan will draw conclusions from Pope Francisâ€™ call for peace

27 June 2016 08:58 (UTC +04:00)

“The call for peace in Nagorno-Karabakh in the statement of Pope Francis in Yerevan calls to end the illegal occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia, withdraw Armenian armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, including Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, to ensure the return of Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs, who were subjected to bloody ethnic cleansing, to their native lands and to restore peace and justice in the region,” Hajiyev stressed.

According to him, the call which was made by Pope Francis in Yerevan shows that this call’s recipient is Yerevan itself.

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 OSCE 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, 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.