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Yerevan avoids talks on Karabakh conflict: Azerbaijani FM

03 December 2016 10:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku – APA. Yerevan avoids the negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.

Mammadyarov made the remarks at a joint briefing with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Baku Dec. 3.

“Yesterday [Dec. 2] I had a conversation with Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office,” said the Azerbaijani FM, adding. “Yerevan has not yet responded to the France’s proposal to hold the 3+2 format meeting (three co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group and Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers) in Hamburg.”

Mammadyarov noted that Azerbaijan is ready for meetings at the level of foreign ministers.

“Armenia avoids such meetings. It means that they have nothing to say,” said the minister.

Referring to the tense situation on the contact line of Armenian Azerbaijani troops, the minister noted that the main issue is the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

According to Mammadyarov, Azerbaijan is not against the expansion of Kasprzyk’s Office.

“However, it is not an important issue. The main issue is the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan,” he added.

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.