The resolution on missing persons initiated by Azerbaijan was adopted by consensus in the plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly on December 19, 2016, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry told APA on Dec. 22.
Sixty countries joined the resolution as co-authors, the ministry said.
The resolution traditionally initiated by Azerbaijan calls upon the states that are parties to an armed conflict to strictly observe and to respect the rules of international humanitarian law, to take all appropriate measures to prevent persons from going missing and to determine the identity and fate of persons reported missing in connection with the armed conflict and to provide their family members with all relevant information that they have on their fate.
In this context, the resolution requests the states to pay the outmost attention to cases of children reported missing in connection with the armed conflict.
In the resolution, it is also requested the Secretary-General to submit a comprehensive report to the 73rd Session (2018) of the General Assembly and the relevant session of the UN Human Rights Council on the implementation of the present resolution.
With the initiative of Azerbaijan the first resolution on missing persons was adopted at the 57th Session of UN GA with consensus in 2002 and henceforth, the resolution on missing Persons was submitted to UN GA biannually on a periodical basis.
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.
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