Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan urges Ireland chairing the OSCE in 2012 to take concrete steps to resolve its Nagorno Karabakh conflict with Armenia, Parliament Vice-Speaker Bahar Muradova told the Baku-based Trend new agency Monday.

Muradova said the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was the main topic of discussions at a recent meeting with the Irish delegation within the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s winter session in Vienna.

The sides exchanged views on the work that Ireland will conduct as the acting chair of the organization. Proposals for several meetings and events with the participation of Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly were put forward, Muradova said.

"I stressed that Ireland's activity as the OSCE chairing country must serve not only to bring the representatives of the delegations together. It should be aimed at a global approach to the issue and to give effect to the measures which can promote the Karabakh conflict settlement."

She said that the Irish delegation was informed about the importance of implementing measures for a rapprochement of the parties' positions, as well as taking specific steps to put pressure on Armenia as the invading country for it to take a constructive position.

"The Irish delegation wants to achieve specific results," she said. "Using their desire, we must also expand our efforts and are willing to cooperate."

Successive meetings with the Irish delegation will be held to discuss the Karabakh conflict this year, Muradova added.

The Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 due to Armenia’s territorial claims. Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a brutal war which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced up to a million Azerbaijanis. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh and seven surrounding regions, has been occupied by Armenian armed forces since a fragile ceasefire was signed in 1994. Peace talks, brokered by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, have been largely fruitless so far.

Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

This story is published by AzerNEWS Weekly under a project funded by the Foundation for State Assistance to the Development of the Media under the President of the Azerbaijan Republic.