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EU says itâ€™s closely following Karabakh settlement process

20 September 2017 13:14 (UTC +04:00)

The European Union is closely following the process of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s settlement, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas said on Wednesday, APA reported.

“I understand how delicate the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is,” he said.

Jankauskas added that the EU is not dealing with this issue directly, but it is closely following the settlement process.

“We keep this the process of the conflict’s settlement in the spotlight, on both local and international platforms. There is a format working for the settlement of the conflict. A meeting is expected to take place in New York at political level. The conflict and other related themes will be discussed prior to the new agreement to be signed with Azerbaijan, as well as the Eastern Partnership summit,” he 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.