Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan will demand next week that the international fact-finding mission visit all of its Armenia-occupied territories, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.

The issue will be raised during separate meetings of the two countries’ foreign ministers in New York with the mediating OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs brokering settlement to the Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh conflict.

The mission, which will include the Minsk Group co-chairs, will scrutinize the illegal settlements in Nagorno Karabakh and adjacent regions.

"The time of the mission has been scheduled - late September or early October," Mammadyarov said. "A demand has been made for the fact-finding mission to go to the occupied lands. This issue has already been agreed upon both in Baku and Yerevan."

Mammadyarov said this will be the first such mission since 2005. He added that this is "not a fact-finding, but an appraisal mission".

The Karabakh conflict flared up in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces occupy 20 percent of Azerbaijan. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but efforts by the US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions demanding its unconditional pullout from the occupied territories.