Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

France has changed its OSCE Minsk Group (MG) co-chair, who was engaged in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the French Embassy in Baku told Trend on October 21.

The new co-chair is Stephane Visconti, the embassy said. Visconti earlier worked as the French Ambassador to Latvia.

The embassy noted that the date of his appointment to the new post is unknown yet. Visconti will replace Pierre Andrieu in this position.

The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Currently, it is co-chaired by the Russian Federation (Igor Popov), the U.S. (James Warlick) and France.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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

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