Karabakh’s Azerbaijani community ready for dialogue with Armenians
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
Azerbaijani community of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region is ready for intercommunity contacts with Armenians, Head of community Tural Ganjaliyev has said.
Ganjaliyev made the remarks while meeting with Andrzej Kasprzyk, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, according to the information published on the community’s website on February 13.
During the meeting, Ganjaliyev emphasized that he will work more closely toward the intercommunity contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of the Nagorno-Karabakh as a newly-elected MP from Khankandi in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Furthermore, Ganjaliyev noted that internally displaced persons want to return to their lands that are under occupation, and the Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno-Karabakh supports the initiatives put forward in this field.
Community members also attended the meeting, which was held in the office of the community.
The Azerbaijani community of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno Karabakh region has recently held numerous meetings with the ambassadors of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries in Azerbaijan, as well as other officials and public figures. They stressed during the meetings that the Azerbaijani community is ready for joint coexistence with the Armenian community on the conditions of peace and Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, within its internationally recognized borders.
Baku strengthens the role of Karabakh’s Azerbaijani community and wants to ensure equal access to negotiations of the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in the region.
The Azerbaijani community, which as a result of ethnic cleansing was forced to leave their homes, has the legal right to participate in determining the future legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Without the recognition of this right, a comprehensive and fair settlement of the conflict cannot be achieved.
Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan’s breakaway region which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. The occupation displaced hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.
The Minsk Group’s Co-Chairs are mandated to provide an appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of assuring the negotiation process; to obtain conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk Conference, and to promote the peace process by deploying OSCE multinational peacekeeping forces.
For nearly 25 years, the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh have yielded no results. To this day, Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.
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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
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