Baku supports substantive and result oriented negotiations to achieve the soonest resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

He made the remarks during a meeting with French Secretary of State for European Affairs Harlem Desir as part of his working visit to France Sept. 8.

At the meeting the sides had comprehensive exchange of views on current status of substantive negotiation process over the settlement of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

The sides stressed the importance of further acceleration of substantive negotiation process.

The sides also expressed their satisfaction of the sustainable development of the bilateral political, economic and cultural relations between Azerbaijan and France.

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Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and French Secretary of State for European Affairs Harlem Désir discussed the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in France Sept. 8.

“During the meeting with Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov, we discussed ways to find a lasting and peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the French secretary of state tweeted.

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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