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French ambassador: Co-chairs spare no efforts to create conditions for resuming discourse

14 February 2017 11:22 (UTC +04:00)

The co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group spare no effort to create conditions for resuming discourse, French Ambassador to Armenia Jean-François Charpentier told a press conference on Tuesday, APA reported citing Armenia-News - news.am.

As per the French diplomat, the mediators are confident that there is no alternative to a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“There were casualties not solely during the brief war in early April 2016, and that this situation cannot be considered satisfactory, but in this context, it’s important to comprehend that the resolution is not in the hands of the intermediaries. It depends on the political will of the parties [to this conflict],” he said.

The diplomat added that France stands ready to receive the participants in the respective meeting.

“In any way, the conflict will only be resolved peacefully. There are examples of conflicts that were resolved peacefully in the twentieth century,” he said.

And responding to the remark that the mediators put parity between the parties to this conflict, Jean-François Charpentier said: “Reread the one-, 1.5-year statements of the Minsk Group; you will see clear messages.”

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.