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Russia highly appreciates role of public diplomacy in resolution of conflicts

03 February 2017 10:22 (UTC +04:00)

Russia highly appreciates the role of public diplomacy in facilitating the resolution of conflicts, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Friday.

She made the remarks when asked about the possible impact of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, APA reported.

“The most important mission is raising awareness within social circles about the need to peacefully seek a mutually acceptable compromise solution to the conflict,” Zakharova said, noting that any initiative should be aimed at precisely that.

“Moscow welcomes any initiatives that have set themselves this very specific mission,” she added.

For the purposes of contributing to the peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace was established on December 6, 2016. The Platform is an initiative of the citizens of Azerbaijan and Armenia who wish to contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict.

The initiative on the creation of the Platform has generated the interest of the international community as well as attracted the high level of public attention in both conflicting states. A large number of well-known experts highly appreciated this initiative and stressed the very special role of the above-mentioned peacekeeping initiative in the process of the peaceful settlement of the conflict.

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.