Yerevan to continue efforts on peaceful settlement of Karabakh conflict – foreign ministry
04.12.2014,
11:10
Yerevan will continue its efforts with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to achieve a settlement of Karabakh conflict exclusively by peaceful means, Armenia’s minister of foreign affairs Edward Nalbandyan said at his meeting with the mediators in Switzerland.
YEREVAN, December 4. /ARKA/. Yerevan will continue its efforts with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to achieve a settlement of Karabakh conflict exclusively by peaceful means, Armenia’s minister of foreign affairs Edward Nalbandyan said at his meeting with the mediators in Switzerland.
The meeting with the Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov (Russia), James Warlick (USA), Pierre Andrieu (France) and Personal Representative to OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andjey Kasprshik took place in Basel on Thursday.
The sides discussed further advancement of the Karabakh peace process, the press office of Armenia’s foreign ministry reports.
Nalbandyan noted that Azerbaijan has escalated its military rhetoric on a high level over the last weeks and is making statements that distort the content of the talks, along with gross violations of the ceasefire on the contact line with Armenia and with Artsakh that lead to casualties.
On November 12, Azerbaijani troops shot down a MI-24 Karabakh helicopter that was carrying out a training flight near the line of contact. Following Azerbaijan’s refusal to allow access to the site for recovering the bodies of the three killed pilots, Karabakh Army of Defense resorted to a special operation and recovered the body of one and remains of the two other pilots from the crash site on November 22.
The Karabakh conflict started in 1988 when prevailingly Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh declared withdrawal from Azerbaijan. In a referendum on December 10, 1991, 99.89% of Nagorno-Karabakh population voted for independence from Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan responded by large-scale military operations that led to loss of control not only over Nagorno-Karabakh itself, but also over seven adjoining areas. About 25-30 thousand people were killed and about a million had to leave their homes during the military operations.
A trilateral cease-fire agreement was signed on May 12, 2004, and has been followed since then. The ongoing Karabakh peace process started in 1992 under auspices of OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia and France. –0--
