The Embassy of Azerbaijan in Belgium raised the issue of a group of Belgian MPs paying a visit to the occupied Azerbaijani territories has been raised before the Belgian parliament’s Chamber of Representatives, the Flemish Christian Democratic Party, and the country’s Foreign Ministry, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikmat Hajiyev told on Tuesday.

Hajiyev noted that despite Armenia overstating the matter, the visits made by Els Van Hoof, head of the Belgium-Armenia parliamentary friendship group, and Georges Dallemagne, member of the Chamber of Representatives, is an individual one.

He added that Els Van Hoof has close ties with Armenia and its lobbyist organizations.

“The Belgian Chamber of Representatives said the visit has nothing to do with the organization’s activities and that there is no mention in the Chamber’s working schedule of any visit to Armenia or any other place. The secretariat of the Flemish Christian Democratic Party said they were unaware of this visit and that it was an individual visit,” Hajiyev said.

He added that the aforementioned persons will be added to the list of “undesirable persons” of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry after verification.

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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