PACE head offers to organize contacts between Azerbaijani, Armenian delegations
By Rashid Shirinov
While the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains unsettled for over two decades, more and more calls are voiced for establishing a dialogue between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh to accelerate the peace talks.
President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Pedro Agramunt has stated his will to organize contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations. In this context he plans to discuss the possibility of organizing PACE’s activity in a more constructive way.
Agramunt, earlier addressing the PACE session, said that international conflicts, including the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, are unacceptable and must be resolved on the basis of parliamentary diplomacy and in the framework of territorial integrity of states.
Last meeting between the two communities of Nagorno-Karabakh was held seven years ago, in 2009. Since then, such initiatives has stalled because of the reluctance of Armenian side. By this inaction, Armenia in fact denies the right of the Azerbaijani community to return to their historic lands.
This unconstructive position of Armenia delays the peace process over the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, while more than 1 million of Azerbaijanis driven out from their houses in Nagorno-Karabakh, are obliged to live a refugee life in their homeland.
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.
While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign State with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.
Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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