Baku, Azerbaijan, May 23
By Seba Aghayeva - Trend:
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be settled sooner or later, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said May 23.
He made the remarks during the General Assembly and the 14th Board Meeting of the International Fund for Cooperation and Partnership of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.
"There are no non-solvable conflicts," said Mammadyarov. "As a person directly involved in the negotiations, I would say that there are reasons for being optimistic."
"Anyway, we will solve it sooner or later, because it can't remain in such a frozen state as it is now," he added.
Mammadyarov said that there is a clear international legal framework for this, including four resolutions of the UN Security Council.
"When joining the UN, all countries undertake to abide by the resolutions of the organization," said the minister. "In the case of Armenia, it is quite difficult."
However, there will be tough-minded people in Armenian leadership who will start realizing that good relations with neighbors are a keystone to a country's success, Mammadyarov added.
He said that due to the short-sighted policy of Armenia's current leadership, the country has been isolated from all the serious projects that are being implemented in the South Caucasus.
Azerbaijani foreign minister expressed hope that the conflict will be resolved in the foreseeable future.
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 US are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
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