CSTO never planned to deploy peacekeepers in conflict zones: secretary general

YEREVAN , October 21. / ARKA /. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has never planned or sought to deploy peacekeepers in Transnistria or Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zones, the organization’s secretary general, Nikolay Bordyuzah, told a video news conference today in Yerevan.

According to Bordyuzha, CSTO’s peacekeeping forces had been established several years ago only and they are now undergoing joint combat training.

"In Transnistria there are already Russian peacekeepers, who quite successfully carry out their ask, and as for Nagorno-Karabakh, a decision to deploy peacekeeping troops there is contingent on the consent of the two countries," he said. 

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in 1988 after the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave declared its 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’s 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-