Baku, OSCE MG mull Nagorno-Karabakh conflict's resolution
By Sara Rajabova
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, engaged in the peace talks on the long-lasting Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, are on visit to Baku to discuss the conflict settlement.
President Ilham Aliyev received Co-Chairs James Warlick of the United States, Igor Popov of Russia, and Pierre Andrieu of France, as well as Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk on July 23.
The sides discussed the current state and prospects of the peace talks to settle the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Prior the visit to Azerbaijan, the co-chairs discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with the Armenian authorities in Yerevan.
“A negotiated settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is possible if the parties are ready and willing,” James Warlick wrote in this Twitter page while in Baku.
The OSCE Minsk Group hopes for a meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents by the end of 2015.
The latest meeting between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan took place in Paris, France last October through the French president's initiative.
Earlier, the co-chairs discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement and organization of presidential meeting in Washington and Moscow.
Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.
Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal.
Peace talks mediated by Russia, France, and the U.S. have produced no results so far.
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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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