BAKU, March 15. /TASS/. Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev believes that talks on the Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan should resume as soon as possible, according to a statement posted on his website.

"At the first stage, the negotiations should resume as soon as possible. Armenia should not elude the talks," Aliyev said during his visit to France, a country that co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"Presidents of the states that co-chair of the OSCE Minsk group - France, Russia and the United States - have repeatedly said that the status quo is inadmissible. We say that too, and we want the status quo to be changed as soon as possible, we want this conflict to end. We want peace in the region, allowing Azerbaijani refugees to return to their homeland," he said.

Nagorno-Karabakh sought independence from Azerbaijan at the end of the 1980s, which resulted in a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that claimed the lives of 25,000-30,000 people between 1988 and 1994. Since then, the territory has been controlled by Armenia.

The Minsk Group on settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh, which acts as a mediator, comprises Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan.