Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has accused the OSCE Minsk Group of creating conditions for his country’s military aggression against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). He expressed such an opinion in an interview with Anadolu news agency.

Noting that the OSCE Minsk Group is inactive and does not want to put serious pressure on Armenia, Aliyev said that the Minsk Group co-chairing countries—i.e. US, Russia, and France—prefer the "neither war nor peace" policy.

The Azerbaijan president argued that the new leadership that came to power in Armenia in 2018 also dealt a serious blow to the Karabakh negotiation process.

"Their inappropriate and irresponsible statements have in fact paralyzed the negotiation process. In such a situation, the Minsk Group should have taken more positive and courageous steps; but they were just watching. They simply took the audience position. Armenia, of course, is most responsible for the outbreak of the second Karabakh war," he said.

"Unfortunately, the subsequent period also showed that the Minsk Group does not intend to resolve this issue. And we were convinced of that once again during the 44-day war [last fall]. It was absolutely unfair to raise the issue of sanctions against us at the UN during the war when we were restoring the influence of international law on our lands and waging a war for justice.

Today, despite the fact that a year has passed, there are no proposals from them [i.e., the OSCE Minsk Group Co Chairs]. I want to say again that after the second Karabakh war, we did not receive any proposal from the Minsk Group. And since there are no initiatives, it is inappropriate to talk about the activities of the Minsk Group. A year has passed. What do you propose? You say the problem needs to be resolved. I declare on behalf of Azerbaijan that the conflict is resolved," Aliyev added.