UK, Azerbaijan mull settlement of the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict
By Sara Rajabova
United Kingdom's Ambassador to Azerbaijan believes it to be a great injustice that Azerbaijani internally displaced persons (IDPs) cannot visit their homelands.
Irfan Siddiq made the remarks at a meeting with chairman of Nagorno-Karabakh's Azerbaijani community Bayram Safarov on March 11.
International organizations that need to demonstrate resoluteness in settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are continuing a double- standard policy, Safarov said at the meeting, in which British Foreign and Commonwealth Office's counselor on the conflicts in South Caucasus Christopher Joyce also took part.
Safarov said the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved in accordance with international law and on the condition that the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan will be secured.
He noted that Azerbaijan expects the UK and other major powers and organizations tosupport its position.
Siddiq, in turn, said it is a great injustice that IDPs have been unable to return to their homelands in Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent areasfor 22 years.
He also stressed that mandatory provisions in this issue is the peaceful settlement of the conflict within Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.
Joyce, in turn, said it is important for the settlement of this conflict to organize meetings between the communities of the two sides.
"The Azerbaijani community has a desire to organize meetings on this issue. Therefore, we will try to organize a meeting between the two communities," Joyce said.
Azerbaijani MPs Rovshan Rzayev and Elman Mammadov and chairman of the community's coordinating council Orkhan Akbarov also attended the meeting.
The MPs highlighted the conditions created by the Azerbaijani government for the IDPs during the meeting.
Mammadov urged the OSCE Minsk Group, the EU, the UN, and other international organizations to be decisive in resolving the conflict.
Akbarov stressed in his speech that the Armenian government's position creates obstacles for the conflict resolution and community meetings.
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.
The UN Security Council's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.
Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.