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OSCE MG co-chairs due in Ankara to mull Karabakh conflict

15 July 2016 12:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Turbat Baghirova – APA. OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairs will visit Ankara July 18 and will inform the Turkish side about the negotiations on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Baku July 15.

Cavusoglu made the remarks during a joint press conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov.

“Turkey, as a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, will continue to make efforts for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” he added.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means, said the FM, urging Armenia to avoid provocative actions.

“We have witnessed that provocative actions and ceasefire violations during the April events produced no results,” said Cavusoglu, noting that the normalization of Turkey-Azerbaijan ties will have a positive impact in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

Ankara will support formulas to be accepted by Azerbaijan for the conflict settlement, the FM said.

Turkey and Russia will continue to discuss this problem both at the level of presidents and foreign ministers, he 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 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.