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OSCE MG co-chairs to visit Baku on June 19

31 May 2017 08:45 (UTC +04:00)

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group will arrive in Baku on June 19 as part of their visit to the region, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told APA on May 31.

Hajiyev noted that the Azerbaijani side has repeatedly expressed its readiness for the continuation of substantive talks on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“The absurd remarks Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan made at the press conference with the OSCE Secretary General suggests that Armenia’s policy aims to maintain the invasion-based status quo,” he said.

The spokesman stressed that the Armenian foreign minister’s attempts to portray the invasion of the Azerbaijani lands as people’s right to self-determination can only be compared with the fascist Germany’s invasion of former Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland in 1938.

He added that the international community unequivocally and resolutely supports and respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within its internationally recognized borders.

“Thus, the international community makes it clear to Armenia that it will never accept the status quo that has been achieved as a result of occupation. Moreover, attempts to violate internationally recognized borders of states are unacceptable,” said Hajiyev.

“The sooner Armenia realizes this reality and withdraws its troops from the occupied Azerbaijani lands in accordance with the plan that is on the negotiating table, the sooner lasting peace and security will be provided in the region,” added the spokesman.

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.