Nagorno Garabagh

Home page

Nagorno Garabagh

Ukrainian embassy: Any referendum in Azerbaijan can only be held under national legislation

17 February 2017 14:44 (UTC +04:00)

Any referendum in Azerbaijan can only be held in accordance with the national legislation of this country, the Ukrainian Embassy in Azerbaijan told APA.

The embassy said that at the joint press conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Baku on 13-14 July 2016, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reiterated Ukraine’s official stance regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“President Poroshenko noted that Ukraine recognizes Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders and sovereignty and that any referendum in Azerbaijan can only be held in accordance with the national legislation of this country,” said the embassy.

The separatist regime in the occupied Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh is set to hold a “constitutional referendum” on February 20.

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.