Fires in Karabakh: OSCE Ecological Assessment Mission Started Working in NKR

PanARMENIAN.Net - On October 9, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Masis Mayilian received members of the OSCE Mission on assessment of the ecological situation in the borderline zone between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Greeting the members of the Mission Masis Mayilian stressed that the NKR authorities were always open for international cooperation and had taken up everything for the OSCE monitoring to be carried out. Informing that the leadership of Nagorno Karabakh had rich experience of communication with representatives of the international community, the NKR Deputy Foreign Minister noted the distinguishing feature of the Mission - participation of experts from Azerbaijan.



In his turn, leader of the Mission, OSCE Coordinator on issues of economy and environment Bernard Snoy (Belgium) thanked the Nagorno Karabakh authorities for the essential support in the realization of the plans noting that the Karabakh experts, who had taken part in the monitoring, made a constructive contribution to the Mission's work on the territory of Azerbaijan. Mr. Snoy expressed his satisfaction by the fact that the Karabakh authorities had allowed the representatives of Azerbaijan to participate in the monitoring on the territory of Nagorno Karabakh. «Our aim is to come to conclusions based on consensus. The goal of the Mission is the strengthening of confidence between the parties which will contribute in future to the solution of the conflict in general», the OSCE Coordinator noted. According to him, the experts will evaluate the short-term and long-term influence of the fires on the environment and elaborate recommendations on fighting against fires.



On the request of the Mission members Masis Mayilian presented the situation with the occurred fires. In particular, he noted that the fires began to emerge at the beginning of June mainly because of unprecedented droughty weather. «We were very worried about the existing situation as the fires greatly affected the republic's economy taking into consideration the fact that our country is an agrarian one. In this connection an interdepartmental commission on studying the causes of ignition and coordinating works to extinguish was immediately created. The state mobilized all the resources for the struggle against fires and it is very important that we managed to stop the mass expansion of fire. The extinguishing of fires was difficulty as the firemen were under the aimed fire of Azerbaijani snipers», Masis Mayilian said.



At the same time he noted that the problem was politicized by Baku, in particular, materials in which the Karabakh party is charged with the organization of fires are published in the Azerbaijani mass media. «In June we sent a letter to the OSCE Office with a demand to conduct a crisis-monitoring for denying the groundless accusations of Baku. The first monitoring was conducted on June 28, and then 3 more monitorings followed it - on July 3, 4, and 5. By the results of the monitoring Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk elaborated a corresponding report. But Azerbaijan transferred this issue to the UN with which we are extremely displeased», Masis Mayilian said, reports NKR MFA Press Office.