Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 2
By Seba Aghayeva - Trend:
Azerbaijan is dissatisfied with the OSCE Minsk Group, which hasn't achieved progress in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during the whole period of its activity, said Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov Feb. 2.
Baku sees the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs' spreading a statement on reviewing a report in the PACE on the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan at the PACE winter session as a pressure on other countries, the minister said.
The Azerbaijani foreign ministry brought its dissatisfaction to the attention of the co-chair countries' foreign ministries.
"I have sent letters to the foreign ministers of Russia, France and the US and brought Baku's position to their attention," Mammadyarov said. "Azerbaijan has a sovereign right to raise any issue at international platforms and nobody has the right to interfere in its sovereign affairs."
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 the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.