Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan calls on the OSCE mediators brokering settlement to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict to step up pressure on Armenia over its "non-constructive stance", a senior Azerbaijani official has said.

"Though the Karabakh conflict has not found its final solution and a peace accord has not been signed, the [Azerbaijani] president has approved of the work done in this respect so far and has assessed the [mediating] Minsk Group’s efforts quite positively," presidential aide Ali Hasanov told reporters.

Hasanov said the Minsk Group has worked "quite constructively" to bring the positions of the conflict parties closer.

"However, no results have been achieved so far due to Armenia’s non-constructive stance. But this does not mean that the Minsk Group has been idle in the past period or hasn’t worked hard. We are merely demanding that it increase pressure on Armenia, to take action to sway it from its non-constructive stance. And this action has to be underpinned by the norms of international law."

Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a brutal war which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about a million Azerbaijanis. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory has been under the occupation of the Armenian armed forces since a ceasefire was signed in 1994. Peace talks, brokered by the United States, Russia and France through the OSCE Minsk Group, have been largely fruitless so far.