Azernews.Az

By Jamila Babayeva

The ruling New Azerbaijan Party views the activation of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and continuation of negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in a positive light.

"Azerbaijan is absolutely open to the settlement of the conflict," Deputy Executive Secretary of the party Mubariz Gurbanli said in an interview with the party's web-site.

Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group Ambassadors Igor Popov (Russia), Jacques Faure (France), and James Warlick (U.S.) held a series of meetings with Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov, from February 22 to March 11 in Paris and Moscow.

Warlick expressed hope that Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan will meet this month.

Gurbanli said the restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity is the main task.

"Negotiations are in progress within this framework. I believe that negotiations held by the Azerbaijani President and Foreign Minister may give some impetus to the negotiation process," he stressed. "Therefore, the continuation of negotiations is acceptable."

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'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.