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Iran's Karabakh mediation not on agenda - Foreign Ministry

24 October 2016 11:48 (UTC +04:00)

Tehran. Suleyman Farzaliyev – APA. Iran’s mediation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not on the agenda, Bahram Qasemi, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, told a press conference on Monday, APA’s correspondent reported from Tehran.

No other country can play a positive role in the Karabakh conflict as Iran, said the spokesman, noting that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran played an important role of mediator in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“We have achieved the first ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. It was a great success, but didn’t last long due to provocation of some countries,” he added.

Qasemi said that not the mediation issue, but bilateral relations will be discussed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s upcoming visit to Armenia.

“As I know the issue of mediation isn’t on agenda. I hope for a fair solution to the conflict that poses a threat to regional security,” 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 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.