Azerbaijan’s deputy speaker slams Karabakh mediators

Ziyafat Asgarov, first deputy speaker of Azerbaijan’s parliament, has criticized international mediators for the lack of progress in talks with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Peace talks mediated by the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have been ongoing for almost 20 years and Baku cannot afford to wait for another 20 years, Asgarov told reporters today in the capital.

“This is a dead group,” he said.

Araz Azimov, deputy foreign minister, also said there has been no “positive dynamics” in the talks since the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents met in Vienna in November.

Armenians captured nearly 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, in a war after the Soviet breakup in 1991.

More than 30,000 people were killed and a million Azeri nationals displaced before a ceasefire was signed in May 1994.

Armenia has refused to comply with four UN Security Council resolutions passed in 1992 and 1993 calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal from the occupied territory.

President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly said Azerbaijan reserves the right to use military force to regain control of the territory should peace efforts fail.

ANN.Az