The Azerbaijani side placed great hopes for OSCE field assessment mission’s report on territories surrounding Karabakh, Vahram Atanesyan, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, NKR Parliament, told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“It is clear to everybody that the mission was conducted on the initiative of the Azerbaijani side.  I think, the Azerbaijani side, to put it mildly, was not encouraged by the report,” Atanesyan noted.

As for the Karabakh side’s response, the parliamentarian noted the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ report was unbiased, but they have their own mission and the Karabakhi side was not satisfied with all wordings in the report. “Particularly, it refers to the point that Karabakh’s status quo in unacceptable. It hints at the fact that reality does not correspond to political stability in the region. We do not think so,” Atanesyan stressed.

Among the unbiased points, the parliamentarian indicated that the report reflected that the territories of the security zone are mainly inhabited by immigrants from Azerbaijan. It proves the fact that residents of these areas are mainly people, who were forced to leave their homes as a result of ethnic cleansings by the Azerbaijani authorities. The fact that settlers lack identity documents was also objective,” Atanesyan emphasized.

According to him, the mediators expressed their standpoints on the situation in these areas, which may become a subject of dialogue between Karabakh authorities and Minsk Group Co-Chairs. He stressed that an international monitoring in the territories controlled by the Azerbaijani army is urgent. These are Shahumyan region, part of Martakert and Martuni regions.

On March 24, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs presented the Executive Summary of the report of Field Assessment Mission. The mediators conducted a Field Assessment Mission to the seven territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) from October 7-12, 2010.