Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

When the tensions again rose in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after remaining a ‘frozen’ for more than two decades, the international community realized the necessity of increasing efforts to resolve the conflict.

Lack of successful mediation efforts and frequent ceasefire violations, the April clashes threatened to reignite a military conflict between the countries and destabilize the South Caucasus region. This could also disrupt huge energy and transport projects running through and from the region, since Azerbaijan is a significant player and initiator of the projects of the global and regional importance.

Many observers urged the mediating OSCE Minsk Group to take strong steps to achieve peace in the region, expecting Germany, the current OSCE chair, to contribute productively to the de-escalation of the dramatic situation in the conflict region. The deeper involvement of Germany, the most powerful country in the EU, would be welcomed by many.

The German chairmanship earlier voiced commitment to working towards solving the protracted conflicts in the OSCE region, including the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is source of threat for security in the South Caucasus region.

OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Foreign Minister of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier asserted that Germany favors the intensification of the negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Then, Steinmeier's statement was met in Azerbaijan with great interest as the country is waiting for some progress in this regard for a long time.

However, the Germans have not come with a sort of peace plan proposal. Only recently, German Ambassador to Armenia Matthias Kiesler said that Germany submitted a draft budget to the OSCE for the formation of trust mechanisms in the area of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, without disclosing any detail.

Germany's OSCE chairmanship supports the OSCE Minsk Group's efforts to create mechanisms of investigating the incidents in the area of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the German Mission to the OSCE told Trend June 7 commenting on the envoy’s statement.

The Mission further added that Germany’s OSCE chairmanship fully supports the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs' activity, as well as the work on expanding the team of the OSCE Personal Representative, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, it failed to make any move to achieve a breakthrough in the peace process. What is more important in this point is how strong the efforts of the MG will be to bring the sides together, and most importantly pressure on the aggressor Armenia to be constructive in talks.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.

--

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz