Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. K.Zarbaliyeva / Implementation of the regional projects of border guards services of the South Caucasus countries have been complicated due to the ongoing occupation of the Azerbaijani territories by Armenians, Elchin Guliyev, the chief of the State Frontier Service of Azerbaijan, said on 25 September.
The conflict between the two countries of South Caucasus began in 1988 due to territorial claims by Armenia against Azerbaijan. Armenia has occupied 20% of the Azerbaijani land including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding Districts. Since 1992, these territories have been under the occupation of the Armenian Forces. In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active hostilities ended. The Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia, France and USA) are currently holding peaceful negotiations.
During the meeting of the Task Group within the framework of the International conference on frontier issues in Baku, Guliyev noted that measures have been taken to increase border control in compliance with the State program on Efficient Frontier Guard Development of Azerbaijan for 2006 and 2010.
The full program will be carried out by 2009.
The Azerbaijan Frontier Service participates in two projects. One of them is held on a national level, the second within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy through the support of the European Commission on provide assistance to the South Caucasus countries to establish the system of integrated frontier management.
The relevant issue of discussions at the meeting will be the theory and experience of integrated frontier management, the agenda of the 16th plenary meeting of the international conference on frontier issues, functioning of Task Groups and many other issues.
The representatives of frontier services of the US, Germany, Belarus, Great Britain, Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary, Poland and many other countries, international migration organizations, agencies FRONTEX and BODERPOL will participate at the meeting.
Azerbaijan joined the International conference on frontier issues in 2002. Presently, Azerbaijan is the member of three Task Groups and the head of one of them.