Azernews.Az

By Gunay Camal

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh has a potential to escalate, RIA Novosti quoted OSCE Chairman, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier as saying on June 29.

Steinmeier, who will pay a visit to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia starting from June 30, is expected to mull settlement of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in Baku and Yerevan. The visit is carried out in the framework of the German presidency of the OSCE.

“During the German presidency of the OSCE, we have a responsibility to extinguish the danger at possible extent- through ceasefire consolidation, building confidence and by the imminent start of negotiations,” he told reporters in Berlin ahead of the Baku visit.

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.

The German chairmanship earlier asserted that Germany favors the intensification of the negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The OSCE Minsk Group, which was established back in 1994, is co-chaired by France, the Russian Federation, and the United States. The group’s permanent members are Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, and Turkey, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan.

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