Appeals to the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents were considered and the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace was discussed at a meeting of the Pen-club’s Board of Directors on Feb. 15, the organization said in a statement to AzVision.az.
“In full respect of the internationally recognized borders, both sides should seek mutually acceptable conditions for achieving peace in our region. The conflict that has been continuing for almost 30 years should be resolved by the efforts of both countries,” said the statement.
PEN-club pointed out that no country, including Armenia itself, recognized the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“As a result of the conflict, thousands of people were killed, many families lost their relatives and loved ones. We understand that forgetting all these losses will be very difficult. However, we see the other side of the conflict,” said the statement. “International mediators have failed to achieve significant results. Both sides continue fruitless negotiations interrupted due to the Armenian leadership that came to power in the wake of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”
“A second generation is growing, who have been deprived of their homeland. It cannot continue this way! It’s dangerous and not far-sighted to hope for other sides to resolve this conflict. To keep it frozen like this means to give inheritance a potential military conflict that will lead to more losses among our children and grandchildren. The only alternative to neighbors coexisting peacefully is mutual annihilation. Another way is to accept the realities of the modern world and try to find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Therefore we think that such bilateral messages must be supported by all public organizations of both countries for the well-being of their own peoples,” PEN-club said in his statement.
It should be noted that the head of PEN-club of Azerbaijan is famous writer Chingiz Abdullayev.
For the purposes of contributing to the peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Platform for Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan was established on December 6, 2016. The Platform is an initiative of the citizens of Azerbaijan and Armenia who wish to contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
The initiative on the creation of the Platform has generated the interest of the international community as well as attracted the high level of public attention in both conflicting states. A large number of well-known experts highly appreciated this initiative and stressed the very special role of the above-mentioned peacekeeping initiative in the process of the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.
A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.
The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.
Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in Dec.1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.
Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.
Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.
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