Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

No serious progress is observed in the work of the OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

Turkey’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral made the remark at a meeting with the Press Council of Azerbaijan on December 13.

“Azerbaijan has about one million refugees and internally displaced persons, and this problem exists for 25 years,” the diplomat said.

He added that Turkey supports Azerbaijan’s position in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In early December, while in Baku, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called on the OSCE Minsk Group to speed up efforts towards the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on 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. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutski recently also noted that the OSCE Minsk Group, which mediates the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, works too slowly.

"We will continue to work and I hope that we will not pass this problem to our grandchildren,” Azertac reported citing Slutski as saying.

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

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