Azernews.Az

BAKU – OSCE mediators brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh have issued a joint statement summing up their visit to the region paid last week.

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Igor Popov of Russia, Bernard Fassier of France and Robert Bradtke of the United States – welcomed the decision by Azerbaijan to postpone consideration of its resolution in the United Nations General Assembly.

In the statement, issued last Thursday, they also reiterated that the Minsk Group remains the sole framework for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

The co-chairs traveled to Baku, Yerevan, and Nagorno Karabakh September 6-9.

Last Wednesday, the co-chairs crossed the Line of Contact (LoC) on foot, en route to Khankandi, the center of the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh republic, "to highlight that the LoC is not to become a permanent barrier between neighboring peoples and to demonstrate to all parties that the ceasefire of 1994 must be strictly respected". This marked the first time the mediators have crossed the contact line of the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops since November 2001.

In their meetings with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, with Armenia’s Serzh Sargsyan, and with the leaders of the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh republic, the co-chairs presented their work plan for the months ahead, as described in their earlier press statement. They stressed that a more constructive approach by all sides will be needed to be able to implement their plan and to make progress in the months leading up to the OSCE summit.

The co-chairs held discussions with all parties regarding the previously agreed Field Assessment Mission to the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh, which they will conduct between late September and mid-October. The intermediaries presented the elements of their mission, and they will finalize their preparations for the mission in the nearest future, the joint statement said.

The co-chairs again strongly urged all parties "to respect the cease-fire and exercise restraint on the ground and in their public statements", and called for an end to incursions across the Line of Contact. While all parties reconfirmed their commitment to the 1994 cease-fire, the co-chairs reiterated that it is critical that this commitment is observed in practice.

The statement follows several skirmishes on the frontline, in which casualties were reported on both sides.

Before they return to the region to carry out the Field Assessment Mission, the mediators will travel to Washington and then to New York "to work with the sides on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, as they had previously announced."

Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war in the early 1990s, which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about one million Azerbaijanis. Armenia has been occupying over 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory since then. Peace talks have largely accomplished no result so far.