Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

No one can deny the clear message sent out by the international community through the UN Security Council Resolutions on the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan in 1993, Belgian MP David Geerts said.

Geerts made the remark while answering questions from The European Azerbaijan Society on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Geerts went on to say that it would be better if the Armenian armed forces withdraw from the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

"So we could now rapidly and really achieve the ending of the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and make progress in peace process," Greets added.

Referring to settlement of the conflict, Greets said that a crucial element that needs to be taken into account here is the unconditional return of the IDPs to their homelands.

"In parallel, an important investment should be done to guarantee better life conditions of those people in the respective regions upon their return," Greets said.

According to Geerts, there is no doubt that the increased mutual contacts between Azerbaijan and Europe offers an unique opportunity to Azerbaijan and its people to put the problems of territorial integrity high on the political agenda via also an economic cooperation.

"Indeed, the Minsk Group's negotiations are far from success. I believe that different members of the Minsk Group have a too limited global vision on the real purpose of these negotiations," Geerts said.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.