Azerbaijan, OSCE official mull Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
By Sara Rajabova
Azerbaijani Defense Minister and OSCE representative have discussed the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov received Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Andrzej Kasprzyk on May 12, the Defense Ministry said.
The meeting focused on the current situation on the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, the results of monitoring.
They also exchanged views on the current situation and prospects of negotiations on the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The OSCE mission conducted a monitoring on troops contact line in the south-east of Gapanli village of Azerbaijan`s Tartar region on May 6 in accordance with the mandate of personal representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.
The monitoring ended without an incident.
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.