Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijan has called on the OSCE Minsk Group to intensify efforts to make progress in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Hikmat Hajiyev, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesperson, said the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs must intensify their efforts to reach a breakthrough in peace talks as they had been instructed to do by four UN Security Council resolutions and the presidents of their respective countries in their joint statements.

Armenia have occupied more than 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, having made territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, which led to a lengthy war in the early 1990s.

Yerevan has also not yet implemented the UN Security Council's resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories. Moreover, peace talks mediated by Russia, France, and the United States through the OSCE Minsk Group and on the basis of the Madrid Principles have been largely fruitless.

Recently, the political affairs committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved a draft resolution on Armenia’s withdrawal from occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Hajiyev told Trend on November 10 that Armenia’s hysteria over the report prepared by PACE member Robert Walter and the adoption of the resolution by the committee is a vivid demonstration of its particular concerns and panic.

He said it was yet another example of Armenia’s fear of the international community's just and fair approach to resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

PACE’s political affairs committee approved on November 4 a draft resolution for “the withdrawal of Armenian armed forces and other irregular armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan and the establishment of the full sovereignty of Azerbaijan in these territories," within the framework of the OSCE Minsk process.

Hajiyev further noted that the aforementioned report was also a subject of discussion at the joint press conference of the Armenian and Russian foreign ministers in Yerevan on November 9.

“We stand in line with the view expressed at the press conference that the OSCE Minsk Group acts on the basis of agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as approved by the relevant UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874, 884) for the settlement of the conflict,” the official stated.

He went on to say that the OSCE document dated March 23, 1995, numbered 525/95, on the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group's co-chairs had also provided that the co-chairs should be guided in their activities by the appropriate UN resolutions, the UN Charter, and the OSCE Budapest Summit decisions.

He further added that the co-chairs should present a report on the implementation of the resolutions to the president of the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary General.

Hajiyev voiced the foreign ministry’s repeated dissatisfaction that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have so far failed to fulfill the mandate entrusted to them by the UN, noting their ongoing attempts to preserve the status quo of the conflict.

“Within a period of more than 20 years, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have not made any progress in the resolution of the conflict. Figuratively speaking, not even a single soldier of the Armenian armed forces has left the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and not a single refugee or internally displaced person has returned to their homeland,” he remarked.

The diplomat went on to note that Azerbaijan is continuing its practice of informing international organizations and the world community of Armenian aggression, the occupation of its territories, the notorious ethnic cleansing on its seized lands, and the blatant violation of the norms and principles of international law.

“Azerbaijan by all means will ensure the restoration of its territorial integrity and sovereignty within its internationally recognized borders,” Hajiyev stated.

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

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