President: France to make every effort to drive negotiations on Karabakh to final stage
13.11.2012,
16:08
France will make every effort to drive negotiations on Karabakh conflict to the final stage, French President Francois Hollande said Monday after he met with his Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who is in France now for a three-day official visit.
YEREVAN, November 13. /ARKA/. France will make every effort to drive negotiations on Karabakh conflict to the final stage, French President Francois Hollande said Monday after he met with his Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who is in France now for a three-day official visit.
He said he has discussed Nagorno-Karabakh problem with his Armenian counterpart.
Hollande was quoted by the Armenian president’s press office as saying that the negotiations were suspended for a while, but they should be resumed and brought to the finish. He said the sides should be guided by Madrid principles to find a long-term and final solution to the problem.
The French president said he is responsible for the settlement of the matter, since France is co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group, which brokers the negotiations.
Karabakh conflict broke out in 1988 when Karabakh, mainly populated by Armenians, declared its independence from Azerbaijan.
On December 10, 1991, a few days after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a referendum took place in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the majority of the population (99.89%) voted for secession from Azerbaijan.
Afterwards, large-scale military operations began. As a result, Azerbaijan lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven regions adjacent to it.
Some 30,000 people were killed in this war and about one million people fled their homes.
On May 12, 1994, the Bishkek cease-fire agreement put an end to the military operations.
Since 1992, talks brokered by OSCE Minsk Group are being held over peaceful settlement of the conflict. The group is co-chaired by USA, Russia and France.-0---
