On May 11, 2017, members of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace held a reunion on Friday. The meeting was joined by chairman
of the International Eurasian Press Fund (IEPF) Umud Mirzaev, senior researcher
of the Institute of Law and Human Rights of ANAS Rizvan Huseynov, MP from the
Udmurt Republic (Russian Federation) Elgiz Hajiyev, and co-coordinator of Peace
Platform from Azerbaijan Orkhan Nabiyev.
The current state of affairs and
directions for the future activities of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for
Peace were discussed during the meeting.
For the purpose of contributing to a
peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the
Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace was established on December 6, 2016. The
Platform is an initiative of the citizens of Azerbaijan and Armenia who wish to
contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
The initiative on the creation of
the Platform has generated the interest of the international community as well
as attracted the high level of public attention in both conflicting states. A
large number of well-known experts highly appreciated this initiative and
stressed the very special role of the above-mentioned peacekeeping initiative
in the process of the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against
the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.
A fierce war broke out between
Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a
result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of
Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent
districts (Lachin, Kalbajar">Kalbajar, Aghdam">Aghdam,
Fuzuli">Fuzuli, Jabrayil">Jabrayil, Gubadli">Gubadli
and Zangilan">Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became
refugees and internally displaced people.
The military operations finally came
to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek
in 1994.
Dealing with the settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE">OSCE Minsk Group, which was
created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE">OSCE after the Budapest
summit held in December 1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992.
The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States,
France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.
Besides, the OSCE">OSCE
Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and
French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.
Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN
Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other
resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other
organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from
Nagorno-Karabakh.
