Azernews.Az

The discussions on the Kosovo status sparked a heated debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday.
Armenian representatives pointed to alleged similarities between the ethnically divided region and Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh, and voiced support for granting a similar status to the Azeri region, which has been occupied by Armenian forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended hostilities.
The Azerbaijani delegation dismissed the claims. MP Ganira Pashayeva said the Kosovo model could not be a precedent for the resolution of conflicts in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
"Such statements merely confuse the public and could deal a blow to the talks on settling the Garabagh conflict," Pashayeva said.
She added that it was wrong to draw parallels between conflicts. "Every conflict has its own history and roots of origin."
The debate followed presentation of Lord Russel Johnston's report whereby he made it clear that the Kosovo problem was unique and therefore could not set a precedent for the settlement to other conflicts.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus republics reared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims. Armenia has been occupying over 20% of Azerbaijan's internationally-recognized territory since the early 1990s, in defiance of international law. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but the OSCE-brokered peace talks have been fruitless so far.
The winter session of PACE started in Strasbourg on Monday. A group of MPs led by the head of the Azerbaijani delegation at the assembly, chairman of the parliamentary commission on international and inter-parliamentary relations, Samad Seyidov, is attending the discussions to last till Friday.
At the opening of the session, PACE elected 63-year-old Lluis Maria de Puig of Spain as its new president, while Seyidov was elected the assembly's vice-president.