Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will discuss a campaign launched by Armenians in the United States on the recognition of the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state.

The vice-speaker of the Azerbaijani Parliament and head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the OSCE PA, Bahar Muradova told local media on January 9.

Muradova said there is an agreement about the direction of the negotiations in the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to the positive way and avoiding actions that prevent this.

She went on to say that the last steps of Armenia inconsistent with this agreement.

"We will try that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly expressed its attitude towards this issue," Muradova said.

California State Legislature member Mike Gatto submitted the proposal to the legislative body recognizing the independence of the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on January 6.

Gatto's resolution, which recognizes the occupied Nagorno Karabakh as a "sovereign state", refers to the rights of people to self-determination. However, it doesn't indicate the current regime of the so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" was established through the military occupation of the Azerbaijani territory and ethnic cleansing by the Armenian armed forces.

Moreover, Muradova added that the winter session will also put forward the requirement on categorically suspending the placement of Syrian Armenian in the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

A document received by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti recently said that last year about 200 Armenian refugees from Syria were settled in the occupied Zangilan region, which was "another clear evidence of the illegal settlement policy pursued by the Armenian state."

According to the Armenian government, more than 7,000 Syrian Armenians have already expressed the desire to move to Armenia, Eastbook.eu portal reported in August.

The Armenian government started constructing apartment buildings for Syrian refugees in May this year, the same source said.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly expressed serious concern over the settlement of Syrian Armenians in its Nagorno-Karabakh region that has long been occupied by Armenian armed forces.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far. Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories.