MFA: Visegrad Group reiterates its support to countries' territorial integrity
By Akbar Mammadov
Visegrad Group has reiterated its firm support to sovereignty and territorial integrity of all Partners and stressed the urgency of the earliest solution of unresolved conflicts in territories of Partner countries based on UN Charter and Helsinki Final Act, Spokesperson of the Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva said in her Twitter account on April 9.
With the participation of the ministers of Foreign Affairs of the V4 (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), the Visegrad Group made a joint statement on the future of the Eastern Partnership at the video-conference on Wednesday.
"We stress the urgency of the soonest settlement of the unresolved conflicts in the territory of the Eastern Partnership countries on the basis of the norms and principles of international law, as enshrined in the UN Charter and Helsinki Final Act," the Group said in its statement.
It should be mentioned that the video-conference organized by the Czech Presidency of the Visegrad Group replaced the meeting that was planned to be conducted earlier between the foreign ministers of V4 and the Eastern Partnership countries but was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In turn, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry stated: we would like to reiterate that the principle of “equal rights and self-determination of peoples” as one of the 10 principles of the Helsinki Final Act is defined as follows: “The States will respect the equal rights of peoples and their right to self-determination, acting at all times in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the relevant norms and principles of international law, including those relating to the territorial integrity of States.”
"As a result of the video-conference, the Visegrad Group adopted a Joint Statement on the future of the Eastern Partnership. The statement emphasized the importance of maintaining high priority and strategic importance of the Eastern Partnership in the foreign policy of the European Union," the ministry noted.
"While including the paragraphs on the EU’s policy towards its Eastern Partners, the statement stressed that this policy should reflect shared values as fundaments of Eastern Partnership, as well as pointed out the importance of being inclusive and supporting the choices of Partners concerned and differentiation on the basis of Partners commitments and aspirations".
It should be noted that a number of countries, including France, Germany, Turkey, UK, Canada, Australia, Norway, Pakistan, Latvia, Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, as well as major international organizations such as the EU, NATO, OIC, GUAM, TURKPA have recently reiterated their support for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and condemned the illegal elections held in in Karabakh on March 31.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.
The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Group’s efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97
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