Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

Armenian lobby exerts strong pressure upon the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Former Turkish Ambassador to Russia, Halil Akıncı made remarks in his interview to the dailykarabakh.com website. Akıncı stressed that Russia should make a sincere support to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.

The OSCE Minsk Group has been criticized by Azerbaijan repeatedly. Established in 1992 for the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the organization failed to solve this long-lasting issue. Thus, Armenia controls over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions for over 24 years, using the resources of these rich lands.

“The efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group on resolving the problem were ineffective from the very first day,” Akıncı believes. “Participation of such regional powers as Russia and Turkey is needed to resolve the problem.”

At the same time, serious support of Iran is needed to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, the diplomat noted.

Akıncı stressed that Turkey provides necessary assistance to resolve the problem.

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict evolved in 1988 after Armenia territorial claims to neighboring Azerbaijan, whose 20 percent of lands it occupied in an unneighborly way.

The OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, proceeding talks based on the renewed Madrid principles. The statements promising a sincere contribution to the peaceful resolution of the conflict have become frequent, but declarative in essence. That, unfortunately, ruined confidence in success of the mediators representing the U.S., Russia and France.

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Nazrin Gadimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @NazrinGadimova

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