Warlick: OSCE MG co-chairs have no immediate plans to visit region

Warlick: OSCE MG co-chairs have no immediate plans to visit region
# 14 December 2016 07:04 (UTC +04:00)

The OSCE Minsk Group (MG) co-chairs have no immediate plans to visit the region, but are available at any time if a visit would be helpful, US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick told APA on Wednesday.

“I am pleased that the French co-chair, Ambassador Visconti, is in the region this week and will meet with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan”, said Warlick.

“In view of my decision to step down on December 31, an interim co-chair will be announced in the near future”, 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 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.

Nagorno Garabagh

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