OSCE PA delegation to hold talks on Karabakh in Baku

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation with president Joao Soares and Special Representative on Nagorno-Karabakh and Special Envoy on Georgia Goran Lennmarker on the head will hold talks with Azerbaijani officials on Monday, focusing on items of cooperation between Azerbaijan’s administration and OSCE.

Within the framework of the working visits to the region of the South Caucasus, the OSCE delegation is reported has arrived in Azerbaijani capital and will meet with country’s President Ilham Aliev and Parliament’s Speaker Oktai Asadov. Ahead of the visit to Azerbaijan, which is reported to end on March 16, delegates had paid a visit to Armenia and Georgia.

It’s worth mentioning that these visits are the first ones, paid by Joao Soares at the post of OSCE PA president. The agenda for talks with authorities of the three countries are the situation in Georgia after war and the Karabakh conflict, said in the statement, released on the official pages of the organisation.

The Nagorno-Karabakh (armed) conflict broke out back in 1991, when, subsequent to the demand for self-determination of the Nagorno-Karabakh people, Azerbaijani authorities attempted to resolve the issue through ethnic cleansings, carried out by Soviet security forces (KGB special units) under the pretext of the implementation of the passport regime and by launching of large-scale military operations, which left thousands dead and caused considerable material damage.

A cease-fire agreement was established in 1994. Negotiations on the settlement of the conflict are being conducted under the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen (Russia, USA, and France) and on the basis of their Madrid Document, presented in November, 2007.

Azerbaijan hasn’t yet implemented the 4 resolutions of the UN Security Council adopted in 1993, by continuing to provoke arms race in the region and openly violating on of the basic principles of the international law non-use of force or threat of force.