Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 21
By Seba Aghayeva – Trend:
GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development hopes that two resolutions on conflicts will be adopted at the 71st session of the UN General Assembly.
These resolutions are titled “Protracted Conflicts in the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) Area and Their Implications for International Peace, Security and Development” and “The Situation in the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan.”
Both resolutions were included to the agenda of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly. The UNGA 71st session started Sept. 13 and will end Sept. 26 at the UN headquarters in New York.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict 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.
Altay Afandiyev, GUAM secretary general, told Trend Sept. 21, that during its chairmanship in GUAM, Azerbaijan has made efforts to coordinate the two draft resolutions.
“Today work is underway with other countries’ missions to mobilize international support. I think there is a real chance for the resolutions to get adopted in the current session of the UN General Assembly,” he said. “I hope the drafts will be supported by the majority of UN members.”
“As the most respectable forum of international community, the UN can play a very important role in drawing attention to the need of resolving the conflicts in the GUAM countries,” he said. “Presenting the draft resolutions on the UN platform has become a factor helping the GUAM member-states to defend their interests.”
Azerbaijan assumed the GUAM presidency on Jan. 1, 2016.
The GUAM was created by post-Soviet states in 1997 during the summit of heads of states of the European Union in Strasbourg. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the format and four years later withdrew. In 2006, Ukraine and Azerbaijan announced plans to further increase the GUAM member relations by renaming the organization GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development and establishing its headquarters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.