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EU committed to supporting OSCE MG on Karabakh issue

15 December 2016 08:07 (UTC +04:00)

The European Union is committed to supporting the OSCE Minsk Group (MG) on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Malena Mard, head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, told reporters in Baku Dec. 15.

Mard noted that Herbert Salber, the EU special representative for the South Caucasus, met with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Hamburg.

During the year, Salber visited Azerbaijan five times, and he is also expected to visit Azerbaijan next year, Mard said, stressing that the EU will continue closely cooperating with the OSCE Minsk Group on the conflict’s settlement.

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 Dec.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.