BAKU, February 16. /TASS/. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has called for officially abolishing the OSCE Minsk Group and a number of other OSCE mechanisms.

"The Azerbaijani president noted the importance of officially abolishing a range of OSCE mechanisms, which have outlived their usefulness, in particular such idle structures as the OSCE Minsk Group, the High-Level Planning Group, and the institute of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office," the presidential press service quoted him as saying at a meeting with OSCE Chairperson-in-office and Maltese Foreign Minister Ian Borg.

According to Aliyev, the OSCE budget could be used for more important things.

He also said that the Karabakh conflict has been settled and Azerbaijan has ensured its sovereignty and territorial integrity. "President Ilham Aliyev noted that the process of normalization between Armenia and Azerbaijan has a bilateral character," the press service said.

The OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, the United States, and France, was set up in 1992 to settle the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.