Azernews.Az

BAKU – The Council of Europe parliamentary assembly’s subcommittee on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict met on Monday without the participation of Armenia, which refused to attend, head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE Samad Seyidov said.

The meeting, which took place as PACE’s summer session opened, was joined by the Azerbaijani delegation, as well as representatives of several political parties, rapporteurs on Armenia and representatives of the PACE secretariat, Seyidov told journalists.

The subcommittee was established in 2005 to oversee the implementation of the assembly’s resolution calling for a pullout of Armenian troops from occupied Azerbaijani territories. However, the body’s activity was suspended due to the death of its chairman Lord Russell Johnston in the summer of 2008. After Mevlut Cavusoglu was elected PACE President in January 2010, he offered to resume its work, but the subcommittee had not been reinstated due to Yerevan’s opposition.

PACE decided at its winter session this year to resume the subcommittee’s activity. Spanish lawmaker Jordi Xucla i Costa was elected chairman of the subcommittee.

The Karabakh conflict emerged during the last few years of the Soviet Union. 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, has been under Armenian occupation since the two South Caucasus republics signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following a lengthy war. Over a decade of efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.