In the course of the PACE summer session, Rafael Guseinov, a member of the Azeri delegation to the CE Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), has prepared a document on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The APA News Agency reports that the document - a declaration on the need for expediting a peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – was published in English and French and distributed among the CE members. The document was signed by over 20 PACE members representing 15 states.
According to the document, despite the fact that about 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory is “occupied” and about 1m people are refugees and displaced persons, official Baku is making consistent efforts to resolve the conflict without using military force. At the G-8 summits in Italy in 2009 and in Canada in 2010, the U.S., French and Russian Presidents stated the need for drafting a comprehensive peace treaty. In this context, the alarming fact is that Armenia has not responded to the proposals concerning the updated Madrid principles of the speediest settlement of the problem within the OSCE Minsk Group, as well as regular violations of the ceasefire since this summer, the Azeri MP claims.
According to Guseinov, instead of drafting a peace treaty, Armenia is drawing attention to issue of improving the ceasefire regime established in 1994 as a means of speeding up a final settlement of the conflict. The “neither war nor peace” situation, as well as ineffective negotiations, cannot last for ever. It poses a serious threat to peace and stability in the South Caucasus, as well as in Europe. In this context, the authors of the document points out the need for intensifying efforts toward a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.