Eurasia Press & News
On Tuesday 11 February 2014, a short debate was held in the UK Parliament (the House of Commons) on the UK policy towards Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan initiated by MP Stephen Pound.
The UK Foreign Office Minister Mr Mark Simmonds took part in the debate and made a speech. In his speech, Mark Simmonds said that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict continues to hamper development in both Armenia and Azerbaijan and causes further instability in an already troubled South Caucasus region.
The Minister added that the conflict is sometimes described as a frozen conflict and this is misleading. Fighting continues to these days and very recently. The UK is concerned by the on-going ceasefire breaches along both the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. There were reports of increasing numbers of ceasefire violations in January and early February.
He said that the UK strongly supports the work of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group-led peace process. The Presidents of the three Co-Chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group reiterated at last year’s G8 summit in Loch Erne, it is primarily for the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments to take ownership of the peace process. It is their conflict and they must take responsibility in order to resolve it.
