Azernews.Az

BAKU – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is due to pay a visit to Azerbaijan next year, Palestinian Ambassador Nasir Abdul Karim Abdul Rahman has said. The date of the visit is not known at this point.

"Mahmoud Abbas is looking forward to visiting Azerbaijan," the ambassador told the press on Tuesday.

He said that during the Palestinian leader’s visit the parties will hold talks on multilateral relations. The agenda also includes the situation in Palestine and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

"Our position on the Nagorno Karabakh problem is clear-cut. We support Azerbaijan. This conflict is to be settled on the basis of international law and the resolutions passed by the United Nations. The world community should step up its efforts to achieve a solution of the Karabakh problem. The conflict must be resolved peacefully and the displaced persons have to return home."

Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war in the early 1990s, which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about a million Azerbaijanis. Armenia has been occupying part of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory since then. A ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but long-standing efforts by international mediators have been largely fruitless so far. The UN has passed four resolutions on an unconditional pullout of the Armenian armed forces, but none of them have been implemented so far.