France’s Hollande to visit Yerevan and Baku in April - Dezir
23.03.2015,
14:28
France’s president Francois Hollande will discuss the Karabakh conflict with his Armenian and Azerbaijani colleagues during his visits to Yerevan and Baku on April 24 and 25, France’s minister of state for European affairs Harlem Dezir said.
YEREVAN, March 23. /ARKA/. France’s president Francois Hollande will discuss the Karabakh conflict with his Armenian and Azerbaijani colleagues during his visits to Yerevan and Baku on April 24 and 25, France’s minister of state for European affairs Harlem Dezir said.
Earlier reports said the French president will attend the commemoration of the centennial of 1915 genocide of Armenians in Yerevan on April 24.
Paris will make every effort to help settle Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and protect the right of self-determination in the region, Dezir said, as cited by the press office of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutiun party, according to Novosti-Armenia.
Along with the US and Russia, France is fully involved in the Minsk Group efforts to find a lasting settlement to the problem, Dezir said.
He also said the current status quo is not in the interest of Armenia or Azerbaijan. Aiming at resuming diplomatic peace initiatives the president called a summit where presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliev met on October 27, 2014, the minister of state said. An agreement was reached at the summit to exchange information of missing people as the first humanitarian step, Dezir said.
This meeting helped give a renewed impetus to the peace talks based on so called Madrid principles that include non-use of force, territorial integrity and right of self-determination, Dezir said.
The recent escalation on the line of contact indicates the need for implementation of these principles, hence France continues its active efforts in this direction, Dezir said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into armed clashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan sought to secede from Azerbaijan and declared its independence backed by succeeding referendum.
A truce was brokered by Russia in 1994, although no permanent peace agreement has been signed. Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions have been under the control of Armenian forces of Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is the longest-running post-Soviet era conflict and has continued to simmer despite the relative peace of the past two decades, with snipers causing tens of deaths a year. –0--
