Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The international community and the European Union fully support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Juris Poikans, Ambassador for the EU Program, "Eastern Partnership" of the Latvian Foreign Ministry made the remarks on the sidelines of the Youth Forum of the "Eastern Partnership" in Riga.

Latvia presides over the Council of the EU in the first half of 2015.

"We support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. There is a clear position of the international community and the EU on this issue," Poikans told Trend.

Poikans noted that he has repeatedly visited Baku and understands how Nagorno-Karabakh problem is important for Azerbaijan.

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.

"Frozen conflicts are a very important issue for all countries in the former Soviet Union area. We work closely with our allies and friends in the EU, as well as with the United States to try to find a solution to these very sensitive issues," said Poikans.

The EU can provide a platform and use certain incentives to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but it has no right to impose any decision upon the conflict sides, according to him.

“At the end, the sides themselves should make a decision on the conflict.The international community as a whole can provide a platform to settle it,” said Poikans.

He also noted that the OSCE Minsk Group works over the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, however adding that it has yielded no results so far.

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.

Regarding the possibility of changing the format of the OSCE Minsk Group, Poikans said this decision should be made by parties to the conflict.

Earlier, some experts and officials have suggested changing the format of OSCE Minsk Group or increasing the number of co-chairing countries.

He also added that he intends to visit Azerbaijan in late February.

--

Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz