Armenian PM allows for OSCE Minsk Group's abolition if Azerbaijan has no intention to unleash conflict

YEREVAN. Jan 31 (Interfax) - Armenia agrees with the idea that the OSCE Minsk Group for the Karabakh settlement should be abolished, but needs to be sure that Azerbaijan has no intention to unleash a conflict, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

"We agree to abolish the OSCE Minsk Group for reasons that the absence of conflict makes the conflict-serving format irrelevant. Yet we want to be sure that the OSCE Minsk Group abolition means the same for Azerbaijan. We want to be sure that Azerbaijan's aspiration to abolish the OSCE Minsk Group does not aim to get the green light and start a new conflict through formulating territorial claims against Armenia," Pashinyan said at a press conference on Friday.

"There is no need for the OSCE Minsk Group" if there is peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, he said.

"If the Minsk Group prevents Azerbaijan from starting a conflict, why abolish it? Are there grounds for such intentions of Azerbaijan? Yes, there are. Baku's talk of the so-called western Azerbaijan is a direct claim against Armenian territories," Pashinyan said.

More than 200 square kilometers of Armenia's sovereign territory are occupied by Azerbaijan, however, the Armenian army does not plan to regain them by military force, since Yerevan and Baku signed a legally binding delimitation document, he said. "The only mission of our army is to protect the sovereign territory of Armenia. The army has no other mission and will not have it," Pashinyan said.

The OSCE Minsk Group for the Karabakh settlement was founded in 1992. The United States, Russia and France are its co-chairs.

Other members of the group are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Finland, and Sweden.