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OSCE calls on Azerbaijan and Armenia to intensify dialogue

08 July 2019 18:06 (UTC +04:00)

"We encourage the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to intensify their dialogue in the context of the mediation led by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs," says the declaration adopted at the end of the annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Luxembourg, APA reports.

The declaration also called on take specific and tangible measures to reach a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of the core principles of the Helsinki Final Act, including in particular refraining from the use or threat of force, and respect for territorial integrity and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples.

Note that 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.