Sweden backs OSCE MG efforts to solve Karabakh conflict

Sweden backs the efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group, as well as all the further efforts by the international community aimed at solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has said in Astana, where the OSCE is holding a key summit.

"We are calling on Armenia and Azeraijan to make necessary decisions to achieve significant shift in solving the conflict," he was quoted by Kazakhstani press as saying.

Earlier today, the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitri Medvedev, the Prime Minister of France, Francois Fillon,the Secretary of State of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and his Azeraijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev issued a joint statement in Astana in which they agreed that "the time has come for more decisive efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict."

Sargsyan and Aliyev, in turn, reaffirmed their "commitment to seek a final settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, based upon the principles and norms of international law; the United Nations Charter; the Helsinki Final Act; as well as the statements of Presidents Medvedev, Sarkozy, and Obama, at L'Aquila on July 10, 2009, and at Muskoka on June 26, 2010."

The Nagorno Karabakh conflict started in the early 1990s when Karabakhi Armenians voiced their intention to live independently from Azerbaijan.

It was followed by pogroms against Armenians in Sumgait, Baku and Nagorno Karabakh that turned into a bloody war, leaving around 30,000 killed and more than a million displaced.