UN points to lack of significant progress in Karabakh conflict settlement
By Rashid Shirinov
No significant progress is seen in the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, the chairman of the Committee of the UN Security Council and Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN.
Yelchenko, talking to the UN press service, said that Ukraine, within the chairmanship in the UN Security Council, intends to hold a ministerial meeting on conflicts in Europe on February 21.
He noted that, surprisingly, the topic of conflicts and security in Europe and the role and involvement of the UN in resolving them have not been considered for many years.
“Last time such a discussion was connected with the situation in the Balkans after the Yugoslav crisis in the early 90s,” Yelchenko said.
He added that there are a number of frozen conflicts in Europe.
“If to look to Europe as a whole, there are number of frozen conflicts. In 90th years UN representations and missions attended part of them - Georgia and separately Abkhazia; but they don’t work now; currently OSCE or none at all is engaged in them. There is frozen conflict – Transnistria, where no progress is made, nothing is happening for a long time. OSCE Minsk group is engaged in settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. But there isn’t any noticeable progress as well. And finally, we have Donbass”, Yelchenko stated.
Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.
The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal, but they have not been enforced to this day.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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