OIC to further back Baku’s position on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
By Sara Rajabova
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has always supported and will support the position of Azerbaijan on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu made the remark during his press conference held in Ankara before leaving his position as the secretary general, Anadolu agency reported.
Ihsanoglu further said he always made an effort to resolve the conflicts in Muslim countries.
He noted that the OIC has achieved significant progress in many areas for nine years (during Turkey's chairmanship). The chairmanship in the OIC will pass to Saudi Arabia from January 2014.
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 had caused a lengthy war in the early 1990s.
The OIC always kept the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in focus. Its member states expressed concern over the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenian and looting and destruction of the archeological, cultural and religious monuments in those areas, including Islamic monuments in the resolution adopted by the organization during the OIC summit in Dakar, Senegal in 2008.
Recently, the 40th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of the OIC adopted a resolution recognizing the Khojaly massacre, committed by the Armenian vandals in early, as genocide.