Azernews.Az

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was one of the key topics NATO official, James Appathurai commented on in his interview with AzerNews, where he discussed several issues - from energy cooperation to regional security.

Appathurai, NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, put a broad focus on efforts towards ending the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute.

NATO has repeatedly voiced its preference for a peaceful settlement over an armed intervention when it comes to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict's genuine resolution. The military alliance sees no direct involvement in the negotiation process seeking to find a peace-based end to the conflict. Appathurai's remarks once more underscored the alliance's definite position in view of the conflict in Azerbaijan's occupied lands.

"NATO has no direct role in the political process to find a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Instead, we support the Minsk process," he said.

Despite its position as an outside observer in regard to the twenty-year-old conflict, NATO's concerns over periodical escalations on Armenia-Azerbaijan contact line were well sounded in Appathurai's comments.

"We are concerned about the deterioring situation on the ground. There is no military solution to the conflict, and I hope that the political process will yield results. The NATO framework can only play a supplementary role - allows for contacts between politicians, diplomats and military from Armenia and Azerbaijan in the margins of multilateral meetings. I hope such contacts can have a positive impact, and I was pleased to see that President Serzh Sargsyan and President Ilham Aliyev met in the margins of last year's NATO Summit in Wales," he said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region has suffered a severe conflict that emerged as a result of Armenia's military invasion supported by its baseless territorial claims. The bloody warfare in the early 1990s ended with the occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory. The conflict is still far from a comprehensive settlement despite Baku's best peace efforts and the OSCE Minsk Group's mediation involvement. All efforts have gone in vain since Armenia continues to shun all peace brokering efforts.

The recent fallacious "parliamentary elections" in the Nagorno-Karabakh region stand proof of Yerevan belligerent stand vis a vis Baku.

Backed politically and financially by Yerevan the puppet rulers in Karabakh arranged so-called "polls" on May 3, in defiance to both Azerbaijan's law and international law.

The international community showed great solidarity towards Azerbaijan's position, supporting its sovereignty and territorial integrity by criticizing the so-called "elections" and recognizing the Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the country's territory.

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