Armenia goes on seeking for peaceful settlement of Karabakh conflict despite Azerbaijan’s destructive actions: FM

YEREVAN, May 22./ARKA/. In spite of Azerbaijan’s destructive and provocative actions, Armenia jointly with the international community continue undertaking efforts towards the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said Wednesday giving a speech at Oxford University. 

“In contrast to Armenia, Azerbaijan hasn’t recognized the fundamental principles and settlement elements as an organic whole up to these days. Baku has rejected all the options for the settlement principles proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs, particularly, the last one on the summit in Kazan (June 2011), and at the meetings in Sochi (March 2011), Astana (October 2011) and St. Petersburg (June 2010),” Ministry of Foreign Affairs quoted Nalbandian as saying. 

He noted Baku has also rejected the measures related to trust enhancement proposed by the Minsk Group and supported by the international community. Specifically, these measures referred to ceasefire strengthening, removing snipers from the contact lines, investigating the incidents on the contact lines when the ceasefire regime was violated. 

Nalbandian said Azerbaijan is constantly applying to the provocations on the contact line with Nagorno-Karabakh and the border with Armenia thus escalating the situation and causing new deaths. 

“Even though the co-chairs are constantly calling upon the sides to prepare their peoples to peace rather than war, Azerbaijani authorities, on the highest official level, go on with arms race, war threats, bellicose statements, xenophobic rhetoric and provocative actions,” Nalbandian said. 

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in 1988 after the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave declared about secession from Azerbaijan. As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted in 1991, December 10, to secede from Azerbaijan and in the process proclaimed the enclave the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Full-scale fighting, initiated by Azerbaijan, erupted in the late winter of 1992. International mediation by several groups including Europe's OSCE  failed to bring an end resolution that both sides could work with. In the spring of 1993, Armenian forces captured regions outside the enclave itself. By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of most of the enclave and also held and currently control seven regions beyond the administrative borders of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Almost 1 million people on both sides have been displaced as a result of the conflict. A Russian- -brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994 and peace talks, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, have been held ever since by Armenia and Azerbaijan.-0-