Azernews.Az

OSCE mediators brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh returned to Baku on Friday after visiting both countries and met again with President Ilham Aliyev.
The parties exchanged views on the current state of peace talks and prospects for settling the dispute, Azerbaijan’s state-run Azertag news agency reported.
The co-chairs - Yuri Merzlyakov of Russia, Bernard Fassier of France and Robert Bradtke of the United States – discussed the same issues with President Aliyev in the Azerbaijani capital on Thursday. Earlier on Friday, they were in the Armenian capital Yerevan where they had talks with President Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian. Further, the mediators unexpectedly headed back to Baku. Official sources have yet to elaborate on the reasons for their decision.
Earlier, the co-chairs said they were looking to arrange the next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders.
Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war over the mountainous region of Upper Garabagh in the early 1990s, which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about a million Azerbaijanis. Armenia has been occupying over 20% of Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized territory since then. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but the OSCE-brokered peace talks have been fruitless so far.*