The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the OSCE clarified the allegations surfaced in the Armenian media claiming that at the initiative of the agents of the unlawful separatist regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan a so-called “statement” was disseminated as an “official document” in the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, APA reports.
The Missions notes that in line with the established practice within the OSCE, the Secretariat of the Organization distributes at the request of any participating state any document received from that State without altering its content.
“The Delegation of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the OSCE on a number of occasions has raised this issue with the Secretariat and the Secretary-General of the Organization, drawing their attention to the inadmissibility of allowing Armenia to abuse the OSCE Document Distribution Centre for promoting its annexationist aspirations with regard to the territories it has captured through military force and where it has carried out ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, in violation of the OSCE principles and commitments set forth in the Helsinki Final Act and the OSCE documents and decisions,” reads the statement of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
As a result of negotiations with the Secretary General, the OSCE Secretariat distributed among the participating States a Note Verbale, in which it restated the official policy of the organization that the Secretariat carries no responsibility for the content of the documents received for distribution as set out documents agreed by OSCE participating States. The sole responsibility for the content of a document rests with the participating State, requesting distribution of a document.
The OSCE as an inter-governmental organization carries out the consensus-based decisions and exercises collective will of all 57 participating States. Only consensus documents reflect the position of the Organization.
“Consequently, dissemination of the above-mentioned “statement” is irrelevant and has no effect whatsoever on the declared OSCE position with regard to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, reflected in the relevant OSCE documents and decisions adopted by consensus since early 1990s, which underlined the respect for the inviolability of all borders, whether internal or external and unequivocally recognized that the Nagorno-Karabakh region is part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Furthermore, the participating States in the Budapest summit decision of the 1994 confirmed their commitment to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, which inter alia, condemned the use of force against Azerbaijan and the occupation of its territories; reaffirmed the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and the inviolability of its internationally recognized border; reaffirmed that the Nagorno Karabakh region is part of Azerbaijan and called for immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan,” reads the statement.
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