Azernews.Az

BAKU – An OSCE field assessment mission on Tuesday completed its visit to the Armenia-occupied territories surrounding Azerbaijan’s Nagorno Karabakh region.

The mediators concluded their visit, which started last Thursday, by visiting Kalbajar, the last of the seven regions. On Monday evening, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs held a news briefing in Nagorno Karabakh, Armenia Today news agency reported.

French mediator Bernard Fassier reminded that the proposal to carry out an assessment mission had been made by the Minsk Group co-chairs to study the situation in the region more profundly. He said such a need arose due to the recent appointment of new Russian and US co-chairs.

"As you know, I was the only co-chair who had the opportunity to pay a visit to the territories around Nagorno Karabakh in 2005. However, over the past period the Russian and US co-chairs have been replaced, and Mr. Bradtke and Mr. Popov had not had a chance to visit those regions. We therefore deemed it necessary to visit those regions and closely study the situation to get our job done."

Fassier said that besides the co-chairs, Russian mediator Popov’s aide and three experts were included in the mission, with two of them representing the Geneva office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The French co-chair declined to answer a question about changes that have occurred in the occupied Azerbaijani territories in the past five years. He only said that the information collected during the visit will be analyzed and proper conclusions made in a report that will be submitted to the parties as soon as it is ready.

US co-chair Bradtke said this was not the last mission of the mediators.

"As co-chairs, we consider it important to visit all regions affected by the conflict.We need to understand the situation in those regions and hear the voice of the people there. As Mr. Fassier said, this is our first mission, but it is not the last one."

The Karabakh conflict flared up in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces occupy 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but efforts by the 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.