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No due pressure on Armenia from OSCE MG co-chairs: expert

08 July 2017 [18:30] - TODAY.AZ

By  Trend

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs do not exert due pressure on Armenia, Andrey Epifantsev, Russian political analyst and expert on the Caucasus region, told Trend July 8.

Armenia as well as the countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, in particular its co-chairs, lack political will, according to him.

The expert noted that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are Russia, a strategic ally of Armenia, and France and the US, which have a very strong Armenian diaspora that in one way or another affects the foreign policy of the two countries.

“As a result, we see that these countries do not exert due pressure on Armenia,” Epifantsev said.

Meanwhile, he noted that Turkey, which has the same relations with Azerbaijan as Russia, the US and France have with Armenia, is not a co-chair and is quite passive in the OSCE Minsk Group.

The expert said that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be put in the focus of attention of the international community so that the conflict settlement process moves from a dead point.

He said that now, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not being paid attention to and in this situation, the Armenian side believes it may ignore the conditions of the four UN resolutions on the conflict and not withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani territories, it occupied.

Clashes on the line of contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone will continue until a certain solution is found, Epifantsev said, adding the solution to the conflict can only be achieved through compromise.

It should be noted that on July 4 at about 20:40 (GMT+4 hours), the Armenian armed forces again violated ceasefire and, using 82-mm and 120-mm mortars and grenade launchers, shelled Azerbaijani positions and territories where the civilian population lives, namely the Alkhanli village of the country’s Fuzuli district, thereby grossly violating the requirements of international law, the Azerbaijani defense ministry said earlier.

As a result of this provocation, the residents of the village Sahiba Allahverdiyeva, 50, and Zahra Guliyeva, 2, were killed. Salminaz Guliyeva, 52, who got wounded, was taken to the hospital and was operated on.

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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