Azerbaijan, Baku, 25 February / corr Trend S.Agayeva / Azerbaijan calls on the UN to allow an effective democratic system of self-governance to be built up in the Nagorno-Karabakh region within the Republic of Azerbaijan.
"It is necessary to provide normal, secure and equal conditions of life for Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan," says a draft resolution which Azerbaijan recently presented to the UN General Assembly to be included in the preliminary agenda of the 63rd UN General Assembly, a source at the UN told Trend .
The 63rd UN General Assembly will begin in September. Since 1993 the UN have taken several resolutions on the occupied territory of Azerbaijan.
In the new resolution Azerbaijan calls on the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-third session a comprehensive report on the implementation of the present resolution and to include on the provisional agenda of its sixty-third session an item entitled "The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan".
The document demands the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan;
Azerbaijan calls on UN member-countries to reaffirm the inalienable right of the population expelled from the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan to return to their homes, and stresses the need to create appropriate conditions for this return, including the comprehensive rehabilitation of the conflict-affected territories;
Azerbaijan expresses its support to the international mediation efforts, in particular those of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group CoChairmen, aimed at the peaceful settlement of the conflict in accordance with the norms and principles of international law, and recognizes the need to intensify these efforts with a view to achieving lasting and durable peace in compliance with the provisions stipulated above.
The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since 1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful negotiations.