United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres welcomes the recent meetings in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly between the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General said in a statement on Sept. 26.

The secretary general supports the work of the Co-Chairs to de-escalate tensions and reinvigorate the negotiation process, said the statement.

“The secretary-general hopes that the planned summit meeting at the presidential level would contribute to enhancing confidence and fostering the necessary political will among the parties to find peaceful compromise solutions to the key outstanding issues,” the statement said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.