OSCE MG voices need for renewed commitment to peacefully settle Karabakh conflict
By Sara Rajabova
The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs plan to organize meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers to discuss prospects for solving the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
James Warlick, the U.S. representative to the OSCE Minsk Group, told local media on August 27 that the co-chairs look forward to bringing the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan together at the UN General Assembly in September to exchange views on the way forward on a negotiated settlement.
“We need a renewed commitment at the highest level to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” Warlick said.
He also said the OSCE co-chairs plan to visit the region in the fall, although no specific dates have been set.
Co-Chairs Warlick, Igor Popov of Russia, and Pierre Andrieu of France traveled to Yerevan and Baku in July to meet Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Warlick said during his Baku visit that the possibility of a meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia later this year was discussed.
The latest meeting between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan took place in Paris, France last October through an initiative by the French president.
Despite the long-lasting negotiations to settle Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan, the efforts of the international mediators have largely been fruitless so far.
As a result of a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, the Armenian armed forces occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.
Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France, and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs dubbed the Madrid Principles.
On the other hand, the recent deterioration of relations between the West, mainly the United States, and Russia is believed could negatively impact the settlement process being that both countries serve as Minsk group co-chairs engaged in peace talks for over 20 years.
However, Moscow asserted that tense relations would not affect the resolution process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said on August 27 that the disagreement between Russia and the West should not affect the work of the OSCE Minsk Group on settlement of the conflict, Vestnik Kafkaza web portal reported.
“We hope that disagreements between Russia and any countries that appear not because of our fault, will not affect the work of the OSCE Minsk Group, which includes, inter alia, Russia and the U.S.,” she said.
Zakharova added that there are cannot be any questions and problems from the Russian side.
"We are the participants of this format and approach our obligations very responsibly. We understand how serious is the topic on the agenda of this group," she said.
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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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