Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24
By Seba Aghayeva – Trend:
Over the past half a year, and maybe even earlier, there has been no significant, noticeable progress in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said the deputy head of the Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration’s foreign relations department, Novruz Mammadov.
Speaking with reporters, the top official said that the visit of the OSCE MG co-chairs to the region is related to that. He noted that certain steps are being taken, but as of now they have no visible result.
Mammadov added that the co-chairs visited the region and took an initiative to organize meetings of foreign ministers and presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Neither the Azerbaijani president, nor the Azerbaijani side refuses any meetings related to this issue,” said Mammadov.
He went on to add that however, the president of Azerbaijan has his own stance on this issue, and cited the president as saying, “I am ready to meet, but those meetings should not be held just for the sake of meeting.”
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council’s four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
Trend