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High time to resolve Karabakh conflict â€“ Turkish envoy

23 December 2017 08:09 (UTC +04:00)

The time has come to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral.

He made remarks at the international symposium titled “The future of the region: Geopolitical challenges and perspectives” which was held in Baku on Dec.23, APA reports.

The Turkish diplomat underscored the need to resolve the conflict and put an end to injustice againt Azerbaijan.

According to the ambassador, Azerbaijan has been suffering a great injustice for a long time.

“Armenia occupied Azerbaijani territories, as a result of which more than 1 million people became IDPs and refugees,” he said.

Ozoral noted that the Turkey has always supported and will support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

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.