Azerbaijani, Armenian FMs meet in Geneva

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The parties to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs advocate for intensifying negotiations, as well as achieving tangible results on all issues of negotiation agenda, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva wrote in her Twitter page on January 29.

Abdullayeva’s comments come after the meeting between Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and his Armenian counterpart Zohrab Mnatsakanyan in Geneva, Switzerland on January 29. As Abdullayeva wrote, the meeting lasted seven hours and will continue on January 30.

The co-chairs Igor Popov, Stephane Visconti, Andrew Schofer and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk also participated at the meeting.

Mammadyarov also met with OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stéphane Visconti of France, and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America separately a day earlier, on February 28.

The Minsk Group’s Co-Chairs visit Nagorno-Karabakh region on a regular basis to conduct high-level talks with the parties to the conflict, and to hold meetings with the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and the Minsk Group members to brief them on the process.

They are mandated to provide an appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of assuring the negotiation process; to obtain conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk Conference, and to promote the peace process by deploying OSCE multinational peacekeeping forces.

Unfortunately, for nearly 25 years, the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem have yielded no concrete results.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on the country. Since the war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied around 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

To this day, Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.