Novruz Mammadov: OSCE MG says Azerbaijan, Armenia should come to agreement by themselves

Novruz Mammadov: OSCE MG says Azerbaijan, Armenia should come to agreement by themselves
# 07 October 2016 08:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ramiz Mikayiloglu – APA. Over the past years, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have found the following solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: Azerbaijan and Armenia should come to an agreement by themselves, Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department, said Oct.7.

He made the remarks during the international conference “Azerbaijan’s role on global and regional arena: Realities and Prospects” dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s independence.

“The international community recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. But unfortunately, the conflict remains unresolved,” said Mammadov, noting that the current tension within the international community stems from non-compliance with the international law.

US Secretary of State John Kerry sends a message to the world that allegedly, the leaders are not ready for the conflict’s settlement, he said. “What reasonable option had OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs put forward [for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict] so far that Azerbaijan didn’t agree with?”

“Why Azerbaijan’s seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh are not liberated? Let the major states, speaking about human rights and international law, look at their own actions. “What steps did the major states take for liberation of these seven districts populated by hundreds of thousands of people?,” noted Mammadov.

Over the past years, OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have found the following solution: Azerbaijan and Armenia should come to an agreement by themselves, added the top official.

“This is a manifestation of the unfair and double standard attitude towards Azerbaijan. Armenia states that Azerbaijan is not ready for compromises,” said Mammadov. Yerevan means that Nagorno-Karabakh should be fully given to Armenia. Kerry’s statement is more similar to this position of Armenia,” said Mammadov.

Azerbaijan’s top official called on the relevant bodies of the US to explain Kerry’s statements, stressing that such statements give ground to Armenia to protract the conflict’s settlement.

Mammadov added that Khojaly genocide shouldn’t be put aside when talking about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“Armenia tries to present to the world the so-called genocide as a real one, while the Khojaly massacre is the last genocide committed in the past century,” said the top official, pointing out that many countries as well as several US states have officially recognized the Khojaly genocide.

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.

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