SERGEY LEBEDEV: CIS STATES ARE INTERESTED IN SOONEST SETTLEMENT OF KARABAKH CONFLICT

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.03.2010 16:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ I haven’t the least doubt about all CIS states
being interested in the soonest settlement of Karabakh conflict,
CIS executive secretary Sergey Lebedev said.

"As CIS Executive Committee chairman, I would be glad if Armenia
and Azerbaijan achieved peaceful and fair settlement of the issue,"
he said, adding that though executive committee and other structures
of CIS do not show direct participation, nevertheless they actively
support efforts to find mutually acceptable solution.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict broke out back in 1991, when, subsequent
to the demand for self-determination of the Nagorno-Karabakh people,
Azerbaijani authorities attempted to resolve the issue through ethnic
cleansings, carried out by Soviet security forces (KGB special units)
under the pretext of the implementation of the passport regime and by
launching of large-scale military operations, which left thousands dead
and caused considerable material damage. A cease-fire agreement was
established in 1994. Negotiations on the settlement of the conflict are
being conducted under the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen
(Russia, USA, France) and on the basis of their Madrid proposals,
presented in November, 2007.

Azerbaijan has not yet implemented the 4 resolutions of the UN
Security Council adopted in 1993, by continuing to provoke arms race
in the region and openly violating on of the basic principles of the
international law non-use of force or threat of force.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization
whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed
during the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The organization was founded on 8 December 1991 by the Republic of
Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, when the leaders of the
three countries met in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Natural Reserve, about
50 km north of Brest to sign an agreement on the dissolution of the
Soviet Union and the creation of CIS as a successor entity to the USSR.

CIS members are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Moldova, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. In
August 2009, Georgia withdrew from CIS.

Armenia became CIS member state on February 18, 1992.