Baku, Azerbaijan, March 3
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the OSCE thanks the member states and leadership of the European Union (EU) for non-recognition of the illegal “referendum” held in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, says the mission’s statement issued on March 3.
The Permanent Mission welcomes the recent statement of President of the European Council Donald Tusk, in which he emphasized that the EU supports Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
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 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.