U.S. doing its utmost to help settle Karabakh conflict – envoy

  21 February 2018    Read: 2141
U.S. doing its utmost to help settle Karabakh conflict – envoy
As an intermediary country, the U.S. is doing its utmost to bring together the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in order to find a peaceful settlement, U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta said on Wednesday.

The ambassador noted that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“It is important to remember all these events and the past, and to draw a lesson from all this. It is even more important to build a better future. As an intermediary, we are doing our utmost to bring together the conflicting parties in order to find a peaceful settlement,” he said.

Ambassador Cekuta added that the U.S. will continue to provide assistance to Azerbaijani IDPs.

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, KalbajarAghdamFuzuliJabrayilGubadli 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 OSCEMinsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in December 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, PACEOSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.

 

APA


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