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OSCE to monitor contact line of Azerbaijani, Armenian troops

04 April 2017 08:14 (UTC +04:00)

The OSCE is expected to monitor the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops on April 5, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry told APA on April 4.

The monitoring will be held under the mandate of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Personal Representative along the line of contact in the direction of Garakhanbeyli village of Azerbaijan’s Fuzuli district.

On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring will be held by Personal Representative’s field assistants Peter Svedberg, Simon Tiller and the head of the High-Level Planning Group (HLPG) Colonel Hans Lampalzer.

On the Azerbaijani territories occupied and controlled by Armenian armed forces, the monitoring will be carried out by Personal Representative’s field assistants Mikhail Olaru, Ghenadie Petrica and the representative of the HLPG Lt Col Patrick Farrelly.

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 includesNagorno-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 OSCEMinsk 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.