Minsk Group agrees on resuming Azerbaijani-Armenian contacts
By Sara Rajabova
The OSCE Minsk Group, which deals with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, reached an agreement in principle to resume high level contacts between Azerbaijan-Armenia.
The news was announced in a report by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which was about the results of the Ministry's activities and main directions in 2013, as well as medium-term goals.
"We worked closely with the other co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group (France and the U.S.) as part of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process. Thanks to our joint efforts, an agreement in principle was reached to resume the Armenian-Azerbaijani contacts at the highest level," the report said.
The ministry also said the Russian Federation will continue its active role in the political and diplomatic settlement of the conflicts in the CIS, particularly contributing to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in cooperation with the other OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.
"The priority direction of the ministry's work in the Transcaucasia will be promoting security and stability in the region," the report said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, the Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.
The UN Security Council's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.
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 and dubbed the Madrid Principles. Negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.