Baku, Azerbaijan, April 3
Trend:
If someone calls the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict "frozen", they are completely wrong, said in an interview with AzTV channel Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administration's foreign relations department.
The international community, all organizations, OSCE Minsk group co-chair countries should take steps to resolve the conflict, Mammadov said.
He added that Azerbaijan will not tolerate Armenia's provocations.
It's been 25 years since Armenia occupied Azerbaijan's territories, holds military exercises there and shells Azerbaijani villages, Mammadov said.
"This is unacceptable," he said. "This is no frozen conflict and this conflict must soon find its solution."
Mammadov noted that the OSCE and the international organizations are very passive in finding the solution to the Karabakh conflict.
"There are reasons for that," he said. "On one side, the co-chairs have monopolized the entire process, and what they do is send out open messages to other organizations and even countries not to get involved."
Mammadov said that the latest provocations of the Armenian side on the contact line once again show the shortcomings in the policy pursued by the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs.
"Armenia uses this, takes provocative steps, trying to attract attention," Mammadov said. "Once again, I repeat, our territories cannot remain under occupation forever. We will never settle for that, thus Armenia has to stop similar provocations."
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 withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.