Azernews.Az

STRASBOURG – Territorial integrity of countries is the core principle for the Council of Europe, a senior CE official has said.

Antonio Milososki, the chairman of CE Committee of Ministers and Macedonia’s foreign minister, was responding to Azerbaijani delegation member Rafael Huseynov’s question about the organization’s possible steps on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh conflict.

"The CE supports fully asserting this principle both among its member states and in the whole world. We do not accept in any shape or form one member’s invading another’s territory or violating territorial integrity and inviolability of borders."

A fragile ceasefire has been in place between Azerbaijan and Armenia since a brutal war in the 1990s that claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about one million Azerbaijanis from their homes. Armenia continues to occupy Nagorno Karabakh and seven adjacent Azerbaijani districts in defiance of international law. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but peace talks have been fruitless so far.

Milososki said the Karabakh conflict has always been in the CE’s focus.

"We back a solution by diplomatic means and peacefully. There are advances on this path as well. These advances are not significant, and the process is moving step by step. But the main point is that the process is there and we wish for a positive solution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict."

In response to a similar question by Ganira Pashayeva, another member of the Azerbaijani delegation, Milososki reminded that the OSCE Minsk Group was authorized to deal with Karabakh settlement.

"We, on our end, are interested in a peaceful solution. The CE Committee of Ministers is ready to contribute to a speedy settlement of the conflict as much as it can."