Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry called on the United States to stand neutral in the negotiation process of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"The U.S. mission needs to be a neutral broker," Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry`s spokesman Elman Abdullayev told Trend Agency on May 3.

Abdullayev referred to the meeting between American co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, James Warlick and the representatives of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) on May 2.

"During its mission as a mediator to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the United States should take only facts into account," Abdullayev said.

He noted that the facts of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are known to the international community.

"The conflict amounts to the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and committing bloody ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis. The international organizations condemn Armenia for the policy of occupation. Unfortunately, Armenia continues its aggressive policies and ignores the international community's documents and decisions in this regard," Abdullayev said.

He expressed hope that the U.S. will not succumb to the pressure from the Armenian lobby.

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.

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.

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.