KEY TO KARABAKH SETTLEMENT IN HANDS OF NKR PEOPLE
PanARMENIAN.Net
18.01.2010 18:11 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The bellicose statements of Azeri President Ilham
Aliyev in his New Year message, show that Azerbaijan is not ready to
make concessions in 2010 and continues to be a threat to the people
of Karabakh, he Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said.
According to him, these statements and threats cannot impress or
intimidate Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
Commenting on statements made by Aliyev that the Nagorno Karabakh
problem should be resolved only on the basis of territorial integrity
of Azerbaijan, allegedly supported by the international community,
Nalbandian said that the countries co-chairing OSCE Minsk Group on
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, repeat what the official Yerevan says:
the Karabakh conflict should be resolved in line with principles
and norms of international law, in particular, non-use of force or
threat of force, the right to self-determination and territorial
integrity. "It is stated in the Athens Declaration, adopted by OSCE
56 countries," the foreign minister of Armenia said.
According to him, the Azerbaijani leadership is trying to prejudge the
outcome of negotiations and the Karabakh settlement process, that is a
question of status and self-determination of Karabakh. But the question
of Karabakh’s status is an issue to be solved by the people of Nagorno
Karabakh. This is stated in the details of the Madrid document," Edward
Nalbandian said, adding that despite Baku’s statements, the key to
the Karabakh settlement is in hands of the people of Nagorno Karabakh.
The Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) is a de facto independent republic
located in the South Caucasus, bordering by Azerbaijan to the north
and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia to the west. After the Soviet
Union established control over the area, in 1923 it formed the Nagorno
Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the Azerbaijan SSR. In
the final years of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan launched an ethnic
cleansing which resulted in the Karabakh War that 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 6 December 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.
The Madrid document contains the proposals put forward by the OSCE
Minsk Group co-chairs on the basic principles of a settlement. The
document was presented to the Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives
at the OSCE summit in the Spanish capital in November 2007.