BAKO SAHAKYAN: INDEPENDENCE AND SECURITY OF ARTSAKH NOT AN ARTICLE OF COMMERCE
PanARMENIAN.Net
18.01.2010 10:42 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Bako
Sahakyan met Sunday in Stepanakert with the U.S. Co-Chair of the OSCE
Minsk Group, Ambassador Robert Bradtke and the officials accompanying
him to discuss the current stage of Karabakh conflict settlement
process, reported the Central Information Department of the Office
of the NKR President.
President Sahakyan said the position of official Stepanakert on the
settlement of relations with Azerbaijan remains unchanged: the conflict
cannot be resolved without direct dialogue between Azerbaijan and
Artsakh. He also emphasized that progress is possible only in case
Azerbaijan gives up its non-constructive and aggressive approach to
the problem.
"Independence and security of Artsakh is not an article of commerce,"
the NKR President reiterated.
Robert Bradtke, for his part, stated that military solution of the
conflict is absolutely unacceptable.
The Nagorno Karabakh conflict broke out in 1988 as result of the
ethnic cleansing launched by Azerbaijan in the final years of the
Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from 1991 to 1994. Since
the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several regions
of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the control
of Nagorno Karabakh defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan have since
been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group.
The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 by the Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, now Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to encourage a peaceful, negotiated
resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
The Helsinki Additional Meeting of the CSCE Council on 24 March 1992,
requested the Chairman-in-Office to convene as soon as possible
a conference on Nagorno Karabakh under the auspices of the CSCE
to provide an ongoing forum for negotiations towards a peaceful
settlement of the crisis on the basis of the principles, commitments
and provisions of the CSCE. The Conference is to take place in Minsk.
Although it has not to this date been possible to hold the conference,
the so-called Minsk Group spearheads the OSCE effort to find a
political solution to this conflict.
On December 6, 1994, the Budapest Summit decided to establish a
co-chairmanship for the process.
Implementing the Budapest decision, the Chairman-in-Office issued on
23 March 1995, the mandate for the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Process.
The main objectives of the Minsk Process are as follows: Providing
an appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of
assuring the negotiation process supported by the Minsk Group;
Obtaining conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation
of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk
Conference; Promoting the peace process by deploying OSCE multinational
peacekeeping forces.
The Minsk Process can be considered to be successfully concluded if
the objectives referred to above are fully met.
The Minsk Group is headed by a Co-Chairmanship consisting of France,
Russia and the United States. Furthermore, the Minsk Group also
includes the following participating States: Belarus, Germany, Italy,
Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Turkey as well as Armenia
and Azerbaijan. Current Co-chairmen of the Minsk Group are: Ambassador
Bernard Fassier of France, Ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov of the Russian
Federation and Ambassador Robert Bradtke of the United States.