Today.Az » Politics » Switzerland ready to do best for Karabakh conflict settlement
27 March 2014 [16:26] - Today.Az
By AzerNews
The Swiss OSCE Chairmanship voiced readiness to support the OSCE Minsk Group, which mediates negotiation over resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for South Caucasus, Angelo Gnadinger told Trend Agency that the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship is ready to provide any support to the Minsk Group and to create relevant conditions.
Gnadinger said he had constructive discussions with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov within the framework of the meetings with Azerbaijani officials over the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
"During this meeting, I underlined the importance of the Minsk process from the perspective of the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship, since we consider the conflict a continuing cause of suffering for all the affected people and a threat to the whole Caucasus region. When addressing the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on 16 January, Didier Burkhalter, the Chairperson-in-Office of the OSCE and Foreign Minister of Switzerland, made clear that it is not an option for Switzerland to simply 'wait and see'," Gnadinger said.
He said Switzerland fully supports the Minsk process and closely cooperates with the co-chairs and Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office for the conflict dealt with by the Minsk Conference.
Gnadinger stressed that the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship is ready to provide any support to the Minsk Group co-chairs and encourage the parties to intensify their dialogue.
Earlier, Burkhalter voiced readiness to promote the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
He said the Swiss chairmanship will maintain and support the established format for conflict settlement, which is the Minsk Group co-chaired by the U.S., Russia and France.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.
The UN Security Council's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.
Peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.
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