The creation of the OSCE Minsk Group was the “biggest mistake,” said Rector of Baku Music Academy Farhad Badalbayli, who is also a member of the Public Association “Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.”
He made the remarks at an international conference “The Moscow-Baku Axis: Towards a New Caucasus Geopolitics” that kicked off in Baku on Thursday, APA’s Moscow correspondent reported.
Badalbayli lashed out at the OSCE Minsk Group, criticizing them for not doing anything towards the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict over the past 25 years.
"I am a member of the Public Association “Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region”. For 25 years, we have been holding meetings with the co-chairs who have not done anything during this period. They have come in business class, stayed in five-star hotels, received a high salary, but not taken a single step forward,” he said.
Badalbayli stressed tat the creation of the OSCE Minsk Group is a great and terrible mistake because the United States and France have their own interests in the settlement of the conflict.
“They serve the interests of the Armenian diaspora in these countries. I believe that Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia could have already resolved this conflict together,” he added.
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.
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