Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in spotlight in EU meeting
By Sara Rajabova
Azerbaijani foreign minister and co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk group mulled the settlement process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Brussels.
Elmar Mammadyarov met with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen in the sidelines of the fifth meeting of the foreign ministers of member countries of the EU "Eastern Partnership" on July 22, Azerbaijani foreign ministry said.
They discussed the ways of speeding up the process of finding a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of the known principles and the co-chairs' statements.
The fact that the presidents of the co-chair countries have repeatedly underlined the unacceptability of the status-quo was stressed at the meeting.
The co-chairmen also met with Armenian foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian on July 22.
Following the meeting with the foreign ministers, U.S. co-chairman of OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick wrote on his Twitter page that the co-chairmen will issue a statement concerned about new violence on the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops.
For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories.