Settlement of Karabakh conflict discussed in PACE

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

The PACE Subcommittee on conflicts between Council of Europe member states has discussed the settlement of protracted conflicts in Athens.

The meeting, held in the Greek Parliament, discussed the situation over the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and other conflicts, Report informed on September 26.

During the session, the Subcommittee Chairman Stefan Schennach met with three OSCE representatives on conflicts – Plenipotentiary of the German Foreign Ministry on Armenia and Azerbaijan Klaus Keller, OSCE Special Representative on Ukraine Martin Sajdik and OSCE Special Representative for Transnistrian settlement process Dietrich Heim.

This March, PACE Deputy Stefan Schennach was elected the Chairman of the new PACE Subcommittee on conflicts. He is also the Co-Rapporteur of PACE Monitoring Committee.

Schennach has previously stated that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will become one of three priority issues to be addressed by the new Subcommittee.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict 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 regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.