Helsinki hosts talks on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict's settlement
By Mushvig Mehdiyev
Helsinki meeting on the regulation of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a promising opportunity for the exchange of opinions and information about the existing situation of the conflict resolution process.
Christer Mickelson, Finnish Foreign Ministry's Special Representative for the South Caucasus, said Finland would continue to support the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation on the regulation of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
"The co-chairs are trying to settle the conflict based on the Madrid principles. Azerbaijani and Armenian president met for three times last year, and we hope that the meetings will keep on," Mickelson said.
Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlcik (U.S.), Pierre Andre (France) and Igor Popov (Russia), as well as Adrzej Kasprzyk, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman in Office, are on a visit to Finland. They are meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja and Secretary of State Peter Stepland.
The Minsk Group middlemen will first visit Azerbaijan on February 15 and then depart for Armenia.
The very recent statement by the OSCE urged Armenia and Azerbaijan take appropriate measures to stop tension on contact line from flaring into fatal skirmishes. It excluded any military solution to the conflict, calling on the sides to end incursions, stop targeting villages and civilians, halt retaliatory attacks and use of asymmetric force.
The poor activity of the OSCE Minsk Group is frequently a hot topic of discussion in Azerbaijan given its fruitless mediation so far. The mediator structure's indifference particularly on illegal presence of the Armenian army in Nagorno-Karabakh results in accusations from Azerbaijan.
A lack of any action plan, or means of impact to achieve solution to the conflict, even results in periodical calls for replacing the Minsk Group with more effective structure to solve the knot around Karabakh.
Pascal Monnier, French Ambassador to Azerbaijan, believed that the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh could not be accepted as a problem to last forever.
France urges, by all means, Armenia and Azerbaijan to start a dialogue and avoid any measures threatening this dialogue, said Monnier in his latest address.
Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.
Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions. Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and th.e U.S. have produced no results so far.
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