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France to continue efforts for fair settlement of Karabakh conflict: MG co-chair

12 December 2016 15:46 (UTC +04:00)

France remains committed to continuing efforts together with the US and Russia towards an impartial and fair solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

This statement was made by the French co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group (MG), Stephane Visconti, who paid a visit to Azerbaijan on Dec. 11-12, reads a communiqué from the French Embassy in Azerbaijan.

According to the communiqué, this is the first visit to the region by Stephane Visconti, as the new French co-chair, a few days after his participation in the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg together with his colleagues.

“During the visit, Stephane Visconti met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov,” says the document.

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 OSCE 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, 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 passed by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.