British Minister calls to compromise for Nagorno-Karabakh resolution
By Sara Rajabova
David Lidington, Minister for Europe of the Great Britain made a statement on May 12 in connection with the 20th anniversary of the ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
"Today marks 20 years since the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement. While it brought an end to the fiercest fighting, real peace is yet to be achieved," Lidington said, Foreign and Commonwealth Office website reported.
Lidington noted that "sniper fire continues to take lives on both sides, often the soldiers fighting are younger than the ceasefire itself."
"A humanitarian crisis continues as hundreds of thousands of displaced people still lack an adequate resolution to their plight," he said.
Lidington stressed that peace will only be possible through compromises on both sides.
"A generation now exists who only knows of conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, yet these two peoples have a long, shared history of living together peacefully. Peace will only be possible once both sides have created a situation where an agreement is acceptable to their populations. Unfortunately this is not the case today," he said.
People to people interactions, and the peace-builders who sustain these links, are an essential element of any peace and reconciliation process, he said.
Lidington further said the UK supports the work of the Minsk Group co-chairs who continue to work hard to facilitate progress on the peace agreement.
"The elements making up a deal, including the return of occupied territories and the acceptance of a free expression of will on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, were once again set out clearly on May 7 by the U.S. co-chair, Ambassador James Warlick," Lidington said.
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.