BAKU: OSCE, EU Affirm Support For Peaceful Karabakh Settlement

OSCE, EU AFFIRM SUPPORT FOR PEACEFUL KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Oct 22 2013

22 October 2013, 12:26 (GMT+05:00)
By Sara Rajabova

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and
the European Union have reiterated support for a peaceful solution
of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which has lasted
for over two decades.

OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara
and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius, whose country
holds the EU Presidency, co-chaired an OSCE Troika-EU ministerial
meeting on October 21, the OSCE said.

The objective of the meeting was to maintain high-level political
dialogue on regional security issues between the EU and the OSCE. The
ministers focused on security developments in the OSCE region, in
particular, with regard to conflicts.

The meeting participants expressed their support for the efforts of
the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to find a peaceful political solution
to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and to promote dialogue between
Azerbaijan and Armenia on its settlement.

Kozhara said earlier that protracted conflicts in the OSCE region
remain one of the main sources of tension and a threat to security
and stability in the OSCE area.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in
conflict which emerged over Armenian territorial claims.

A precarious cease-fire was reached after a lengthy war that
displaced over a million Azerbaijanis and has been in place between
the two South Caucasus countries since 1994. Since the hostilities,
Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s
internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and
seven surrounding regions.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian
withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been
enforced to this day.