Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has left for Paris to meet with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to exchange views on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev said on Friday.

Minister Mammadyarov earlier said that the next meeting of the Minsk Group co-chairs would take place after the presidential elections in Armenia.

He also said the mediators had voiced several proposals on the conflict resolution during their last meeting in late January.

The election in Armenia took place on February 18. Incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan won the election.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenia's withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but Armenia has not followed them to this day.

Russia, France and the U.S. - co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - have long been working to broker a solution of the conflict, but their efforts have been largely fruitless so far.

Peace negotiations are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles, also known as Basic Principles. The document envisions a return of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control; determining the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh; a corridor linking Armenia to the region; and the right of all internally displaced persons to return home.