Baku Welcomes Russian Foreign Policy Concept’s Focus on Karabakh Settlement

BAKU (Sputnik) – Azerbaijan welcomes Russian foreign policy concept’s focus on settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmet Hajiyev said on Friday.

The Russian foreign policy concept issued on Thursday said that Russia was actively advocating political and diplomatic settlement of conflicts in the post-Soviet countries such as the Karabakh conflict.

"Azerbaijan welcomes Russia’s defining settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as one of priorities of its foreign policy concept," Hajiyev said.

He added that Azerbaijan would continue constructive activities on settling the conflict and changing the existing status-quo together with Russia and other members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group.

Azerbaijan's Armenian-dominated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed its independence in 1991. After the military conflict ended in 1994, Azerbaijan lost control over the region. Violence erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh on April 2, 2016 and led to multiple casualties. The parties to the conflict signed a Russian-brokered ceasefire on April 5, but mutual accusations have not stopped so far.

The OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States, has been attempting to resolve the conflict since 1992. Azerbaijan insists on preserving its territorial integrity, Armenia protects the interests of the breakaway republic, as Karabakh is not a party to the negotiations.