Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has declared the OSCE Minsk Group defunct and called for its complete dissolution, urging Armenia to also take steps in this direction. He made these remarks during a meeting in Baku with OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioglu, as reported by Minval.az .

Aliyev stated that Azerbaijan had restored its “territorial integrity and sovereignty through military and political means” and insisted the Minsk Group and its institutions had failed in their mission and should now be officially dismantled.

He added that Armenia should likewise take action to facilitate the dissolution of the group.

Secretary General Sinirlioglu congratulated both sides on the progress made in finalizing the text of the peace treaty and noted that discussions toward normalizing relations are continuing. He also referenced joint OSCE-Azerbaijan initiatives currently underway.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has stated that the question of dissolving the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship is open for discussion from Armenia’s side.

“Why are we delaying a decision on dissolving the Minsk Group co-chairmanship? We want to ensure that just as we’ve taken a political decision to end the Karabakh movement, Azerbaijan has no political intention to start a new movement—for instance, a ‘Western Azerbaijan’ movement—turning this not into a peace process, but a conflict-based export from Azerbaijan’s territory into Armenia,” Pashinyan said.