Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov has said the OSCE Minsk Group-brokered talks on settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh "have produced virtually no result".

Khalafov told a briefing at the Azerbaijani embassy in Hungary that unlike the UN Security Council, OSCE resolutions are passed on the basis of a consensus and are not mandatory.

"It is this situation that allows Armenia to drag out talks and even ignore four UN SC resolutions," Khalafov said.

He stressed that Yerevan insists that peace talks be carried out strictly in the OSCE format. "But discussing the issue in other international organizations is Azerbaijan’s sovereign right, particularly because talks that have been ongoing in the Minsk Group format for 19 years have been virtually fruitless."

The Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 due to Armenia’s territorial claims. Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a war in the early 1990s, which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about a million Azerbaijanis. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, has been under the occupation of the Armenian armed forces since a ceasefire was signed in 1994. The four UN resolutions on an unconditional Armenian pullout have not been implemented to date.