Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday hosted an OSCE fact-finding mission that will scrutinize the situation in the Armenia-occupied territories of Azerbaijan around the rebel Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh region.

The meeting with representatives of "the field assessment mission", the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs brokering settlement to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and the personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office took place during President Aliyev’s visit to Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan autonomous republic.

The president welcomed the fact-finding mission’s visit. He also pointed to the importance of the report prepared by the previous OSCE mission in 2005 that documented the destruction in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, AzerTAj state news agency reported.

Touching on the significance of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) experts’ participation in the mission, President Aliyev voiced hope that an unbiased report will be drafted in conclusion of its observations that would reflect illegal settlements and destruction in the occupied lands and overall facts related to the Armenian occupation.

The delegates briefed the president about the work that will be done as part of the assessment mission.

The closed-door meeting lasted over an hour, according to the office of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic’s Supreme Council.

Following talks with President Aliyev, the mission’s representatives left Nakhchivan for Armenia. After their meetings with the country’s president and foreign minister, they are due to leave on Thursday for Khankandi, the center of the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh republic. On Friday, the mission will begin studying the situation in the regions surrounding Nagorno Karabakh. The visit, being paid upon Baku’s request, will last until October 14.

Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war in the early 1990s, which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about one million Azerbaijanis. Armenia has been occupying over 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory since then. Peace talks have largely accomplished no result so far.