Key to Karabakh settlement in hands of NKR people

PanARMENIAN.Net - The bellicose statements of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev in his New Year message, show that Azerbaijan is not ready to make concessions in 2010 and continues to be a threat to the people of Karabakh, he Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said. According to him, these statements and threats cannot impress or intimidate Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.



Commenting on statements made by Aliyev that the Nagorno Karabakh problem should be resolved only on the basis of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, allegedly supported by the international community, Nalbandian said that the countries co-chairing OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, repeat what the official Yerevan says: the Karabakh conflict should be resolved in line with principles and norms of international law, in particular, non-use of force or threat of force, the right to self-determination and territorial integrity. "It is stated in the Athens Declaration, adopted by OSCE 56 countries," the foreign minister of Armenia said.



According to him, the Azerbaijani leadership is trying to prejudge the outcome of negotiations and the Karabakh settlement process, that is a question of status and self-determination of Karabakh. But the question of Karabakh's status is an issue to be solved by the people of Nagorno Karabakh. This is stated in the details of the Madrid document," Edward Nalbandian said, adding that despite Baku's statements, the key to the Karabakh settlement is in hands of the people of Nagorno Karabakh.



The Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) is a de facto independent republic located in the South Caucasus, bordering by Azerbaijan to the north and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia to the west. After the Soviet Union established control over the area, in 1923 it formed the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the Azerbaijan SSR. In the final years of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan launched an ethnic cleansing which resulted in the Karabakh War that was fought from 1991 to 1994. Since the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several regions of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the control of Nagorno Karabakh defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan have since been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group.

The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, now Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)) to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.



The Helsinki Additional Meeting of the CSCE Council on 24 March 1992, requested the Chairman-in-Office to convene as soon as possible a conference on Nagorno Karabakh under the auspices of the CSCE to provide an ongoing forum for negotiations towards a peaceful settlement of the crisis on the basis of the principles, commitments and provisions of the CSCE. The Conference is to take place in Minsk. Although it has not to this date been possible to hold the conference, the so-called Minsk Group spearheads the OSCE effort to find a political solution to this conflict.



On 6 December 1994, the Budapest Summit decided to establish a co-chairmanship for the process. Implementing the Budapest decision, the Chairman-in-Office issued on 23 March 1995, the mandate for the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Process. The main objectives of the Minsk Process are as follows: Providing an appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of assuring the negotiation process supported by the Minsk Group; Obtaining conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk Conference; Promoting the peace process by deploying OSCE multinational peacekeeping forces.



The Minsk Process can be considered to be successfully concluded if the objectives referred to above are fully met. The Minsk Group is headed by a Co-Chairmanship consisting of France, Russia and the United States. Furthermore, the Minsk Group also includes the following participating States: Belarus, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Turkey as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan. Current Co-chairmen of the Minsk Group are: Ambassador Bernard Fassier of France, Ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov of the Russian Federation and Ambassador Robert Bradtke of the United States.



The Madrid document contains the proposals put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs on the basic principles of a settlement. The document was presented to the Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives at the OSCE summit in the Spanish capital in November 2007.