Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev considers talks about resuming the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group, which was carrying out a mediation mission in the Karabakh settlement, pointless.
"As for the mediators, unfortunately, today in Armenia high-ranking officials are still talking about the Minsk Group (OSCE). I think that it is in vain, it does not make any sense. The Minsk Group was effectively paralyzed in 2019," Aliyev said in a speech Friday at the fifth Azerbaijani World Congress. The head of state's speech was broadcast on the state-run AzTV channel.
According to the Azerbaijani president's assessment, the Minsk Group, which received a mandate in 1992 to resolve the Karabakh problem, "has actually achieved no result." "If we look now at the history and actions of the group, the proposals it put forward, we can see that it was not created to solve the problem, we were just a bit naive at the time. This group was not created to solve the issue, but to make the occupation perpetual," Aliyev stressed. According to him, the OSCE is "well aware that the Minsk Group no longer exists.
Negotiations on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict were held within the OSCE Minsk Group headed by the Co-Chairmen Troika - Russia, the U.S. and France - since 1992.
The situation around Nagorno-Karabakh escalated on September 27, 2020, when active hostilities broke out there. On November 9 of the same year, a trilateral statement was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which allowed to reach a cessation of hostilities in the conflict zone. The Azerbaijani and Armenian sides halted their positions, a number of areas came under Baku's control, and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the line of contact and the Lachin corridor.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS