OSCE MG seeks to organize new meeting on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

The OSCE Minsk Group stays in touch with Azerbaijan and Armenia for organizing the next meeting on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

The American co-chair of the OSCE MG, James Warlick announced about this while talking to RIA Novosti on August 16.

The last meeting between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan was held on June 20 in Saint-Petersburg in a trilateral format with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Earlier, Sargsyan and Aliyev met in Vienna on May 16.

During both meetings, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia confirmed their readiness for the next meeting to ensure progress in the negotiations process.

“We continue to explore opportunities to bring them together again, and we remain in regular contact with them and their Foreign Ministers to discuss the existing proposals,” said Warlick.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.

Two decades of talks mediated by the OSCE MG group have failed to produce a breakthrough, and the renewed hostilities, the worst since the ceasefire deal signed in 1994, were assessed as the result of inactivity of the international community.

The American diplomat also noted that the MG welcomes the willingness of Russia to act as guarantor of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

Warlick said the OSCE MG hails the personal involvement of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in the efforts aimed at achieving a sustainable settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Following the negotiations with Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan on Aug. 10 in Moscow, Vladimir Putin said Azerbaijan and Armenia really want to find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis.

Russia and some other countries of the OSCE Minsk Group could act as guarantors in the settlement of the conflict, Putin noted.

Russia hopes Azerbaijan and Armenia will be able to reach a compromise settlement of the existing conflict – without winners or losers, added Putin.

Warlick also added that the deployment of international peacekeeping forces to ensure security in Nagorno-Karabakh has always been considered as part of the settlement of the conflict.