The Azerbaijani President emphasized that despite the issue of Armenia’s military aggression and occupation of Azerbaijani lands being on the OSCE agenda since its inception, neither the organization nor the Minsk Group co-chairmanship mechanism took effective action to resolve the conflict, liberate Azerbaijani territories, or ensure the return of displaced persons.
Given these points, and considering that the OSCE Minsk Group’s negotiation process has served to prolong the occupation of Azerbaijani territories, it is justifiable and timely to question the relevance of the Minsk Group. President Aliyev has repeatedly raised this issue with OSCE leaders.
For instance, on February 18 in Munich, during a meeting with OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid, Aliyev criticized several OSCE mechanisms as outdated and ineffective. He specifically pointed out the Minsk Group, the High-Level Planning Group, and the personal representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office as institutions that merely consumed limited financial resources without contributing to conflict resolution.
This wasn’t the first time Azerbaijan criticized the Minsk Group. Over decades, Azerbaijan highlighted its ineffectiveness, and following the second Karabakh war, Azerbaijan openly declared the structure useless.
Now that the Karabakh issue has been resolved by Azerbaijan, it has become evident that the Minsk Group failed to fulfill its obligations. It appears that the countries forming the Minsk Group either did not assign it any real responsibilities for a peaceful resolution or perhaps intended for the conflict to continue. This can be seen from historical facts and the group’s activities.
In 1991, following the Soviet Union’s collapse, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict intensified. In 1992, an OSCE conference aimed at conflict resolution took place in Minsk. However, during this period, Armenia’s aggression in Azerbaijan led to the occupation of lands and mass atrocities, now evidenced by the mass graves found in Karabakh. The Minsk Group was formally established in December 1994 at the OSCE summit in Budapest, tasked with developing peace conditions. The co-chair countries – Russia, France, and the US – along with permanent members, undertook this responsibility, but the group’s efforts appeared more performative than substantive.
In 1993, the Minsk Group proposed a peace plan, but it was rejected by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. In 2006, the group’s proposals formed the basis of the Madrid Principles, which included territorial returns, interim status for Karabakh, and future determination of its final status. However, these principles didn’t lead to substantial progress, and the Minsk Group continued its ineffective efforts, marked by numerous unproductive visits to the region.
In subsequent years, efforts at resolution, such as the 2009 G8 summit statements and the 2011 Kazan meeting, failed to yield agreements. The 2016 April events and subsequent appeals further underscored the group’s ineffectiveness. Eventually, in response to Armenian provocations, Azerbaijan took military action to reclaim its occupied territories.
Given the Minsk Group’s failure over 28 years to achieve meaningful results, its dissolution appears justified. Azerbaijan has secured its territorial integrity through the 2020 Patriotic War, 2023 anti-terror operations, and the April 2024 recovery of occupied villages. Despite any future international maneuvers, for Azerbaijan, the Karabakh issue is resolved, and the Minsk Group is a defunct and irrelevant institution.
Rauf Nasirov
