Azernews.Az

First Deputy Chairman of Azerbaijan's Parliament, Ziyafat Asgarov, said that the mediating OSCE Minsk Group must increase pressure on Armenia.

"Unfortunately, the current visit if the Minsk Group representatives to the region has not been marked by any innovations," he said on Tuesday. "So, this cannot continue. We have always said and now we insist on strengthening their pressure on Armenia."

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a brutal war in the early 1990s that concluded with the signing of a fragile cease-fire. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.

Mediators from Russia, France and the U.S. -- co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group -- have been brokering peace talks over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since the 1994 ceasefire, but their efforts have not produced any result yet.

Asgarov went on saying that surely, the delay in this issue in particular, poses a threat to the activity of the Minsk Group.

The society has such an impression that they only make visits and are unable to commit any action, he stressed.

"We have repeatedly stated that the opportunity of resolving this conflict peacefully has not been exhausted. But if we see that Armenia is engaged in imitating the negotiations or avoiding them, then of course, Azerbaijan has the opportunity to liberate its occupied lands. We have sufficient military power," Asgarov said.