Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 29
By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:
The Paris meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia is a positive step on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, the head of the EU representative office in Azerbaijan Malena Mard said.
"I think these kinds of high level meetings are definitely very important towards changing the status-quo and peaceful resolution," Mard told Trend Oct. 29.
Mard said that it is important that these kinds of high level meetings will continue in the future.
Joint meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group took place in Paris October 27, the official website of the Azerbaijani president said earlier.
The meeting took place at the initiative of French President Francois Hollande. Then there was a meeting of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.
Thereafter, a joint meeting of French President Francois Hollande, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group took place.
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.
Armenia and Azerbaijan 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.