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Azerbaijani president calls for soonest resumption of substantive Karabakh talks

12 July 2017 13:50 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has called for the soonest resumption of substantive, meaningful and concrete negotiations on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The negotiations were resumed and Azerbaijan did not accept any preconditions by Armenia, President Aliyev said addressing a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers dedicated to results of socio-economic development in the first half of 2017 and objectives for the future, APA reported.

“This is the position of us and the Minsk Group countries as well. Therefore, the aggressor was forced to return to the negotiating table. Now the question is that substantial, meaningful, concrete talks should be resumed as soon as possible,” he said.

“The negotiations must result in the liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani territories and the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. This is our stance,” added the president.

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.