YEREVAN, November 14. /TASS/. The process of settling the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh should be urgently returned to the format of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Armenian President Armen Sarkisyan said on Saturday.
"There is a document on the ceasefire but there is no Minsk Group there. This is the sole institute, which has high powers to resolve the status of Artsakh [the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic]," the presidential press office quoted Sarkisyan as saying.
"No one has changed this format. The status has not yet been defined and this is simply a ceasefire and, therefore, the process must be urgently returned to the Minsk Group. It is necessary to discuss all the issues and make Azerbaijan return to the Minsk Group," the Armenian president said.
On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a full ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, starting from November 10. Under the peace deal, the Azerbaijani and Armenian forces will remain at their current positions while Russian peacekeepers will be deployed to the region.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry and General Staff announced on November 10 that the republic’s armed forces would honor the accords and urged the people to refrain from actions destabilizing the situation in the country.
The OSCE Minsk Group for Nagorno-Karabakh was set up in 1992 to settle the conflict in the disputed region. Initially, it dealt with the issues of preparing conferences and has been acting as a mediator in settling the conflict since June 1993. The OSCE Minsk Group has been directly involved in negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan since March 1994.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July. Azerbaijan and Armenia imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict reported numerous casualties, among them civilians.
The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.