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OSCE MG co-chairs meet Armenian PM

13 June 2018 11:36 (UTC +04:00)

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Andrew Schofer (USA), Stéphane Visconti (France) and Igor Popov (Russia) have met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as part of their visit to the country.

During the meeting, Pashinyan stressed the importance of the role of the mediators in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and expressed hope for effective cooperation, APA reported citing Armenpress.

The co-chairs stated that they will do their utmost to achieve a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The parties stressed the importance of the presidents' commitment to the agreements reached during the Vienna, St. Petersburg and Geneva meetings.

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.