Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 20
Trend:
A representative of the Foreign Ministry of France has commented on a French town mayor's illegal visit to Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian media reported Oct. 20.
"Such initiatives do not change the official stance of Paris, which did not recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh," the representative of the French Foreign Ministry said at a briefing in Paris.
The ministry representative said France, as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, is seeking a diplomatic and political solution to the conflict.
To give a new momentum to negotiations, the president of France, during his visit to Baku and Yerevan in May 2014, proposed the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents to meet in Paris in autumn, and to discuss ways out of the situation, the ministry representative said.
The visit by the French Bourg-les-Valence town's mayor, Marlene Mourier to the occupied Azerbaijani lands, and the signing of a declaration on the twinning of her city with the occupied Azerbaijani town of Shusha are illegal, the acting head of the press service of Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmet Hajiyev told Trend earlier.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the U.S. are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented four U.N. Security Council resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.