Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

OSCE’s Ministerial Council meeting will be held in Milan on 6-7 December under the Chairmanship of Italy. The event is an important opportunity to assess the security situation in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region and the activities of the organization in other areas.

The Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers will meet to negotiate the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the meeting.

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s acting spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva said that Azerbaijan always declared its readiness for meetings with the Armenian foreign minister for the purpose of holding substantive negotiations aimed at achieving result, not only within international events, but also outside their format.

The Azerbaijani side supports the proposal of the co-chairs on promoting peace negotiations and inviting Armenia to take a constructive position in this process.

The focus on OSCE's role in protracted conflicts in the area of Europe is in the top of Italy’s priorities.

The Minsk Group, which seeks for peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since 1992, has yet failed to find peace to the long-lasting conflict.

There is hope for better results from the meeting in terms of realizing an idea of "reviving the Helsinki spirit", that Italy has voiced in the capacity of OSCE chairman-in-office early 2018. The meeting will particularly focus on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, other protracted conflicts, Transnistria, Abkhazia and Ossetia, challenges in the Mediterranean and new transnational threats such as terrorism, cyber security, illegal trafficking and other issues.

The last meetings of the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia took place in New York in September and in Brussels in July through mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group. The meetings yielded no result for settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict because of Armenia's non-constructive position.

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