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Malena Mard assesses EU special rep’s Baku visit as constructive

27 October 2016 13:28 (UTC+04:00)
Malena Mard assesses EU special rep’s Baku visit as constructive

By Rashid Shirinov

Head of the EU delegation in Azerbaijan Malena Mard has assessed the visit of the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Herbert Salber, to Baku as constructive.

Mard, talking to reporters on October 27, said that within his mandate, the special representative supports peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and pays regular visits to Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“It is important for the EU to have contact with both sides,” she noted adding that the EU supports the peaceful solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the OSCE Minsk Group.

Salber, who arrived in Baku on October 25, was received by President Ilham Aliyev on the same day.

Later, Salber met with Azerbaijani Deputy PM, chair of the State Committee for Refugees and IDPs Ali Hasanov, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov.

Salber informed the Azerbaijani side that he will visit the country’s west to inspect the conditions created for refugees and IDP settled close to the frontline.

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.

Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. have produced no results so far.

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