Baku, Azerbaijan, March 7
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to OSCE has made clarifications with regard to the allegations surfaced in the Armenian media claiming that at the initiative of the agents of the unlawful separatist regime in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan a so-called “statement” was disseminated as an “official document” in OSCE.
In line with established practice within OSCE, the Secretatriat of the organization distributes at the request of any participating state any document received from that state without altering its content, said the message from the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to OSCE.
“The delegation of Azerbaijan to OSCE on a number of occasions has raised this issue with the Secretariat and Secretary General of the organization, drawing attention to the inadmissibility of allowing Armenia to abuse the OSCE Document Distribution Center for promoting its annexationist aspirations with regard to the territories it has occupied through military force and where it has carried out ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, in violation of the OSCE principles and commitments set forth in the Helsinki Final Act and the OSCE documents and decisions,” said the message.
As a result of negotiations with the Secretary General, the OSCE Secretariat distributed among the participating states a Note Verbale, in which it restated the official policy of the organization that the Secretariat carries no responsibility for the content of the document received for distribution from any participating state and that such distribution is without prejudice to the OSCE decisions as set out in documents agreed by OSCE participating states, said the message.
The sole responsibility for the content rests with the particpating state, requesting distribution of the document, according to the message from the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to OSCE.
“The OSCE as an intergovernmental organization carries out the consensus-based decisions and exercises collective will of all 57 particpating states. Only consensus documents reflect the position of the organization. Consequently, dissemination of the mentioned "statement" is irrelevant and has no effect whatsoever on the declared OSCE position with regard to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict,” said the message.
This position is reflected in the relevant OSCE documents and decisions adopted by consensus since 1990s, which underlined the respect for the inviolability of all borders, whether internal or external and unequivocally recognized that Nagorno-Karabakh region is a part of Azerbaijan, according to the message.
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.