PACE Chief wants to sit with belligerents for Karabakh discussion

PACE chairman Jean-Claude Mignon has expressed a desire to negotiate over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations, RIA Novosti reported.

"I would like to use this opportunity and to discuss this issue with the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations," he said at the press conference, while answering the question about the Karabakh problem.

He did not specify when it intends to do this.

Mignon recalled about the Commission on Nagorno-Karabakh existing within the PACE.

He also stressed that the Madrid principles worked out by the Minsk Group mediators are the basis for the work in this direction.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France and the U.S. are currently holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the occupied territories.


/Trend/