By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be among the topics to be discussed at the next session of the UN General Assembly.

Draft resolutions on “The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan” and “Protracted conflicts in the GUAM area and their implications for international peace, security and development” have been included in the agenda of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly.

The final version of the agenda has not yet been approved, APA reported on August 7.

Although both issues had previously been included in the agenda of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, they were not tabled for discussion.

The 72nd session of the UN General Assembly will be held on September 12-25 at the UN headquarters in New York. Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia are expected to meet within the framework of the session, with participation of the OSCE Mink Group co-chairs.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign state with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years. Today, Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.

Baku has repeatedly expressed its consent to come to the negotiating table with Yerevan to resolve the conflict by peaceful means, but Armenia continues to play for time and avoids substantive negotiations in order to preserve the inadmissible status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh.