OSCE MG co-chairs to arrive in Baku this week
By Rashid Shirinov
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group will arrive in Azerbaijan on October 7.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov added that they will visit Yerevan before coming to Baku.
"The co-chairs will come to discuss the agenda for the forthcoming meeting of Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia," Mammadyarov said on October 3.
The minister stressed that the mediators want to achieve logical results and to move the settlement process from the dead point after the presidents' meeting takes place.
The OSCE Minsk Group is tasked with mediation of the peace talks over the Armenian-Azerbaijani long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Last time, the Minsk Group co-chairs – Igor Popov of Russia, Stephane Visconti of France, and former U.S. co-chair Richard Hoagland – visited the region on June 10-19. The mediators got acquainted with the real situation on the ground and mulled the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution with the two conflicting countries' leadership.
The Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers last met in New York on September 23. The parties discussed the current situation in the conflict zone and exchanged views on the settlement of the protracted conflict. They also mulled the organization of a meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents in the near future.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.
Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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