UK, AZERBAIJAN MULL SETTLEMENT OF THE AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA CONFLICT
AzerNews, Azerbaijan
March 12 2014
12 March 2014, 18:02 (GMT+04:00)
By Sara Rajabova
United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan believes it to be a great
injustice that Azerbaijani internally displaced persons (IDPs) cannot
visit their homelands.
Irfan Siddiq made the remarks at a meeting with chairman of
Nagorno-Karabakh’s Azerbaijani community Bayram Safarov on March 11.
International organizations that need to demonstrate resoluteness
in settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are
continuing a double- standard policy, Safarov said at the meeting,
in which British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s counselor on the
conflicts in South Caucasus Christopher Joyce also took part.
Safarov said the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be resolved in
accordance with international law and on the condition that the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan will be secured.
He noted that Azerbaijan expects the UK and other major powers and
organizations tosupport its position.
Siddiq, in turn, said it is a great injustice that IDPs have been
unable to return to their homelands in Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent
areasfor 22 years.
He also stressed that mandatory provisions in this issue is the
peaceful settlement of the conflict within Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity.
Joyce, in turn, said it is important for the settlement of this
conflict to organize meetings between the communities of the two sides.
“The Azerbaijani community has a desire to organize meetings on this
issue. Therefore, we will try to organize a meeting between the two
communities,” Joyce said.
Azerbaijani MPs Rovshan Rzayev and Elman Mammadov and chairman of
the community’s coordinating council Orkhan Akbarov also attended
the meeting.
The MPs highlighted the conditions created by the Azerbaijani
government for the IDPs during the meeting.
Mammadov urged the OSCE Minsk Group, the EU, the UN, and other
international organizations to be decisive in resolving the conflict.
Akbarov stressed in his speech that the Armenian government’s position
creates obstacles for the conflict resolution and community meetings.
Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally
recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent
regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus
neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing
efforts by US, Russian, and French mediators have been largely
fruitless so far.
The UN Security Council’s four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal
have not been enforced to this day.
Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE
Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed
by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The
negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.
From: Baghdasarian