Azernews.Az

A conference on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was held in the French Senate on Wednesday, the Azerbaijani embassy in France said.

The conference, "France - OSCE Minsk Group co-chair and forgotten Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict", was opened by member of the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Nathalie Goulet, who acted as a moderator.

Goulet thanked Azerbaijan for the timely and important initiative to hold the event, stressing the need for constant provision of the French public with accurate information about the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

The senator stressed the inadmissibility of the continued occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia, sharing her experience about a visit to the conflict zone and numerous meetings with displaced persons affected by the war fought in the early 1990s.

Azerbaijani Ambassador Elchin Amirbayov briefed the conference participants on Baku’s position in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, stressing special importance of the participation of representatives of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno Karabakh region at the event. He stressed that, remaining committed to the peace process, Azerbaijan, however, finds it unacceptable to maintain the status quo in the conflict zone and considers a phased resolution which envisions immediate elimination of the consequences of the armed conflict as the only possible and effective way to achieve lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Bernard Fassier, the outgoing French co-chair of the mediating OSCE Minsk Group, informing the audience about completing his seven-year activity, spoke in detail of his country and other co-chairs' efforts to assist the conflict parties to make progress in difficult negotiations. Fassier spoke about the evolution of the negotiation process and challenges facing mediators and conflict parties to achieve significant progress in peace talks.

Fassier said that the option of a conflict settlement that is currently on the negotiating table is a document that the Minsk Group has been working upon since 2005.

"Certainly, I myself understand Azerbaijan’s grief, its territories are occupied," he said. "As a Frenchman, I know what occupation is, too. But blaming the Minsk Group for inaction would be wrong. We cannot force the conflict parties into accepting a final solution. The sides must reach this agreement on their own, while we have to assist them in doing so. Our main goal at this point is to prevent a resumption of hostilities. With this status quo, war may rekindle any time."

Fassier voiced hope that peace talks, which stalled after the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents' meeting held in June in Kazan, Russia, would revitalize after the joint statement calling for a peaceful settlement of the long-standing dispute issued in past days by senior officials of Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as the countries brokering settlement to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

In the statement, released Tuesday on the occasion of the OSCE Ministerial Council in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov, Edward Nalbandyan and Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and France’s Minister for European Affairs Jean Leonetti agreed on the need to continue the OSCE Minsk Group-mediated negotiations and to improve the climate for making progress towards a peaceful resolution. As one of the steps in this direction, the five countries’ officials agreed that further efforts should be made to work on the details of the mechanism to investigate ceasefire violations on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops.

The conference, organized by the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno Karabakh and the Azerbaijani embassy in Paris, was attended by leading French politicians, historians, media representatives as well as Azerbaijanis living in Paris and students.