Azernews.Az

BAKU – OSCE chairman Audronius Azubalis has called on the OSCE Minsk Group to step up its efforts in mediating a settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

"Without a bilateral agreement of the conflict parties and the will of all sides involved and the key OSCE players, primarily the Minsk Group, nothing will work out," Azubalis, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister, said in Astana following a meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Kanat Saudabayev.

Azubalis told a news briefing that Lithuania highly assesses the mediating efforts made by Kazakhstan, which chaired the OSCE in 2010. He pledged that his country would continue to make these efforts and work to move the peace process forward, and to resolve several security issues such as removing snipers from the line of contact of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops. "Let’s see what we’ll be able to do," the OSCE chairman added.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a precarious cease-fire in 1994. Armenian armed forces have since occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, defying international law. Years of peace talks, brokered by the United States, Russia and France through the Minsk Group, have been largely fruitless so far.