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French ambassador: Status quo in Karabakh conflict cannot continue

01 June 2017 10:15 (UTC +04:00)

The OSCE Minsk Group is always active in the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, French Ambassador to Armenia Jean-François Charpentier told reporters in Yerevan, APA reported citing news.am.

According to the diplomat, the three Minsk Group co-chairs—from Russia, US, and France—are in constant contact with each other as well as with the presidents and foreign ministers of the conflicting parties.

He added that the co-chairs will visit the region in around ten days.

Charpentier stressed that the mission of the OSCE Minsk Group is to create conditions that will enable to resolve the Karabakh conflict. He noted, however, that the Minsk Group co-chairs do not make decisions. “The right to make decisions belongs to the conflicting parties,” the French diplomat added.

The ambassador noted that everything must be done to find a solution that is acceptable to the conflicting parties. In his words, it is impossible to constantly live under ceasefire violations and threat. “The status quo cannot continue,” Charpentier noted.

He added that during the meeting between Hollande and Sargsyan, the French president expressed his readiness to organize a meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents.

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.