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OSCE MG co-chairs to visit occupied Azerbaijani territories

11 October 2016 15:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Malahat Najafova – APA. As part of their scheduled visit to the region, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are planning to visit the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, said US co-chair of the OSCE MG James Warlick.

Speaking to news.am, the co-chair noted that they will visit the region late this month and that they are planning to meet with leaders of the two countries.

“This is a good opportunity to continue the high-level talks that began in Vienna and Saint Petersburg and to discuss regulatory elements. We hope the presidents will meet on the first opportunity. However, we have no information for the time being about the date and the location of the meeting,” 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.