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Azerbaijan approves meeting "3+2" format within the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg

17 November 2016 20:13 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Azerbaijan accepted the France proposal of a meeting of foreign ministers in the format of "3 + 2" in the framework of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg on December 9, - the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told APA.

Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov made this statement during the meeting with his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault on Nov. 17,

During the meeting ministers also discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They noted the importance of continuing the negotiation process for the early achievement of a political settlement of the conflict, the ministry 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 OSCE 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, 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.