Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 18
By Elchin Mehdiyev – Trend:
The members of Parliament of Azerbaijan sent a protest to the chairman and committees of the Lower House of Russian Parliament in connection with the illegal visit of a group of Russian women to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region on October 7.
The protest was signed by the head of the working group on Azerbaijani-Russian inter-parliamentary relations Ali Huseynli, and the chairman of the Russian community of Azerbaijan Mikhail Zabelin.
On October 7, in the framework of the “Women for Peace” initiative put forward by the wife of former Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, a group of Russian women visited the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region. Among other women, the group also included Svetlana Zhurova, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs of the Lower House of Russian Parliament, Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya, and founder of the Vera International Charity Foundation Anna Federmesser.
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.