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OSCE Minsk Group proposed a meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian FMs in New York

13 September 2019 16:03 (UTC +04:00)

The OSCE Minsk Group proposed to organize a meeting between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in New York on the sidelines of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, Armenian foreign ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalyan told reporters today, APA reports citing Armenpress.

“The Azerbaijani and Armenian FMs agreed to meet, but in which location and in what timeframes the meeting will take place is still unknown. There is a principle according to which Armenia and Azerbaijan should announce about the meeting at the same time in an agreed upon way”, the spokesperson said.

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 December 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.