Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

EU’s top official has warned that the conflicts in the OSCE area threaten the stability and security of the region.

“All efforts must be exerted for their peaceful settlement,” Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy said during the meeting of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers in Basel, Switzerland on December 4.

Mogherini said this mainly concerns the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as well as the conflicts in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

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. Long-standing efforts by U.S., Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

European Parliament in 2013 adopted a resolution which confirmed that Armenian troops have occupied Azerbaijani territories and urged to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions and the L'Aquila statement of the mediating countries' leaders in 2009.

According to changes to the resolution, the European Parliament recalled its position that the occupation of territory of an Eastern Partnership member by another member state violates the fundamental principles and objectives of the EU program.

While speaking about the Ukrainian crisis, Mogherini said that there is no need to work out any new principles for its settlement.

"This crisis must be resolved as part of the existing principles," Mogherini said.

She urged all sides of Ukraine’s conflict to strictly comply with the agreements reached in Minsk.