Italy will make every effort for peaceful resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Italian President Sergio Mattarella said at a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian media reported July 31.
Mattarella stressed that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot have a military solution; the settlement must be only political.
The president stressed that Italy will continue a balanced policy on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including during the OSCE chairmanship, and will make every effort to achieve exclusively peaceful settlement within the co-chairmanship in the OSCE Minsk Group.
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 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its Armed Forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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