Armenia votes for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity at OSCE PA

/By AzerNews/

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijan has achieved yet another diplomatic victory over Armenia, which has been keeping 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized territory under the occupation for over two decades.

The OSCE PA has recently adopted a resolution on Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and the inviolability of its borders at its summer session.

The document expresses deep concern over the conflicts in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine and emphasizes the importance of resolving conflicts based on the principle of territorial integrity, sovereignty, and inviolability of state borders.

Meanwhile, at the July 8 meeting, it was brought to the attention of the OSCE PA that one of proposals on changing the resolution had been forgotten during the discussions. This proposal was accepted by the Secretariat of the OSCE PA Bureau and submitted for discussion.

During the discussions, the head of the Armenian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Artashes Geghamyan, made unsubstantiated bids to reject the resolution.

However the European MPs did not support him.

Azerbaijan’s MP Azay Guliyev, who is also the author of the resolution, introduced the “forgotten” proposal for discussion followed by a new round of voting on the resolution.

The resolution gained even more votes on July 8 and was adopted.

To everyone’s surprise, Geghamyan also voted for the resolution.

After the session, Armenian media outlets wrote about the diplomatic ignorance of Geghamyan and the fact that he always “loses” to the Azerbaijani side.

The resolution highlights the need for parties to the conflicts to fulfill the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and ensure the unconditional return of the populations of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, which have become displaced by conflicts.

One of the most important articles of the resolution states that the right of people to self-determination is inadmissible at the expense of the violation of territorial integrity of states or the sovereignty and political independence of the country.

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 and causing a lengthy war in the early 1990s.

After the occupation of these territories, it formed a separatist regime in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region. Having not been satisfied with violation of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, the Armenian aggressors attempted to achieve the recognition of the so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.”

Azerbaijan, however, has always stated that it would not allow the establishment second Armenian state in its internationally-recognized territories under any circumstances.