Visegrad Group backs Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity

/By AzerNews/

By Sara Rajabova

The Visegrad Group, known as the “Visegrad Four”, has voiced support to Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

The Visegrad Four, which is an alliance of four Central European states – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, expressed its commitment to supporting the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of EU Eastern Partnership countries, including Azerbaijan, said the statement adopted in Bratislava on May 15.

The mentioned statement was adopted during the meeting of foreign ministers of Visegrad Four and Eastern Partnership countries.

Azerbaijan was represented by the foreign minister during this meeting.

The adoption of such a statement on the eve of the EU summit in Riga (May 21-22), and at the meeting attended by the foreign minister of Armenia - member country of the EU "Eastern Partnership" - and the clear declaration of support towards Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty by all countries of the "Eastern Partnership" is considered to be a serious call to Armenia.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. This led to a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

As a result of Armenia military aggression, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 were reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, while 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions calling for Armenia to withdraw from Azerbaijani territory, but Yerevan has yet to comply.

In 2013, the European Parliament adopted a resolution which confirmed that Armenian troops have occupied Azerbaijani territories and urged that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict be resolved on the basis of all four UN Security Council resolutions and the L'Aquila statement of the mediating countries' leaders in 2009.

According to changes to the resolution, the European Parliament recalled its position that the occupation of territory of an Eastern Partnership member by another member state violates the fundamental principles and objectives of the EU program.