Moscow: OSCE MG co-chairs plan to organize meeting of Azerbaijani, Armenian FMs by year-end

Moscow: OSCE MG co-chairs plan to organize meeting of Azerbaijani, Armenian FMs by year-end
# 08 November 2017 12:29 (UTC +04:00)

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are planning to organize a meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers by the end of this year, the Russian Foreign Ministry told APA's Moscow correspondent.

“In consideration of the results of Geneva summit on settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on October 16, the co-chairs are planning to organize a meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers by the end of this year. Until then, the co-chairs will hold separate consultations with the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers. The Russian co-chair is currently working with his American and French colleagues to choose a location and date for these consultations,” said the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov earlier said that he would meet with the Minsk Group co-chairs in Moscow on November 16.

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.

Nagorno Garabagh

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