Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan’s toning down its military rhetoric primarily requires liberation of the Armenia-occupied territories of Azerbaijan, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has said. The statement came at a news conference with his Austrian counterpart, Michael Spindelegger, in Baku on Wednesday.
"The co-chairs [of the OSCE Minsk Group brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict] are calling not to leave a chance for war. However, for this, Armenian armed forces must pull out of the Azerbaijani territories they occupy. The sooner this process begins, the better it will be for everyone. The current status quo does not satisfy anyone."
According to Mammadyarov, so long as the situation "of no peace nor war" on the frontline lingers on, "local incidents" are inevitable. "The latest incident that has taken place on the frontline is a warning to the whole world that the Nagorno Garabagh conflict is not frozen."
Azerbaijani and Armenian troops clashed on the frontline last Friday night in the northern part of Azerbaijan's occupied region of Upper Garabagh. Yerevan claimed four Armenian soldiers had been killed and four others wounded, while one Azerbaijani soldier was later found dead on the battlefield. Fighting flared up anew early on Monday, after a group of Armenian troops launched an attack, in which an Azerbaijani serviceman was killed.
Mammadyarov said the only way to avoid bloody clashes is intensifying peace talks in a constructive manner. "For this to happen, the Armenian side should come to negotiations not with nervous rhetoric, but while displaying constructivism. We believe that there are ways to do this."
The conflict between the two South Caucasus republics flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims. Armenia has been occupying over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory since the early 1990s. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but years of peace talks have brought few tangible results. The mediating Minsk Group co-chairs initially proposed a peace outline on settling the conflict in the Spanish capital in November 2007. In Athens in November 2009, the updated version of the Madrid Document was submitted to the sides. The Madrid Document covers "the return of the territories surrounding Upper Garabagh to Azerbaijani control" and a future determination of the legal status of Upper Garabagh "through a legally binding expression of will" and the right of "internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence." Azerbaijan stated that it accepts the renewed Madrid principles early this year, while the Armenian stance remains unclear.*