Baku, Yerevan agree to expand OSCE monitoring mission UPDATE
By Gunay Camal
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, established to mediate between the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, expect progress at the next meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
James Warlick, U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, made the statement while talking to RIA Novosti on July 27.
“The meetings in Vienna and St. Petersburg played a role in ensuring relative stability and reducing tensions on the contact line of troops and Azerbaijani-Armenian border.
The expected meeting between the presidents should demonstrate the will of the parties to adhere to the ceasefire. We also expect that the next meeting to facilitate progress in the negotiations process, as well as allow to continue activities aimed at reducing tensions between the parties,” said Warlick.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has met Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan twice since the April escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh, first in Vienna in May, and the second time in St. Petersburg in June along with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Nagorno-Karabakh talks held in St. Petersburg between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents and mediated by the Russian president were deemed “useful” and “important” by observers, while Baku called it “constructive.”
He further added that Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargysan have agreed on the expansion of the OSCE monitoring group on the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijani-Armenian border.
“The co-chairs of the OSCE MG are actively working towards the implementation of the commitments undertaken by the Presidents at the meetings in Vienna and St. Petersburg, to reduce tensions and to further promote the process of negotiations for a peaceful solution to the conflict. The presidents agreed on the expansion of the OSCE monitoring group on the contact line and Azerbaijan-Armenian border,” he said.
Warlick has reiterated plans to continue extensive negotiations to resolve the conflict with the involvement of senior officials from each side.
“The progress in the diplomatic direction is necessary to reduce the tension between the parties,” added Warlick.
Warlick earlier noted that the co-chairs have not stopped working with the sides over the investigation mechanisms.
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.
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