Azernews.Az

BAKU – The OSCE chief has said the terms "quick" and "in the near future" are incompliant with the notion of settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

Speaking after a meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs brokering the peace process in Vilnius on Wednesday, Audronius Azubalis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, said that consistent and resolute efforts are pivotal at this point to achieve a solution of the long-standing dispute.

The OSCE chairman said he had discussed with the US, Russian and French diplomats the course of peace talks.

"You can’t say that talks are not underway. The meeting of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian presidents in Sochi [on Saturday] could be a good reference point for adopting positive decisions on the conflict settlement in the future."

During Azubalis’ meeting with the Minsk Group co-chairs, issues of observing the 1994 ceasefire accord were discussed as well.

"There is a standing ceasefire accord, but there are troubling instances of sniper fire from both sides," the OSCE chairman added.

Armenian troops killed a nine-year-old child with sniper bullets in Azerbaijan’s frontline Aghdam region on Tuesday.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus republics reared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims. Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory since a war in the early 1990s. Peace talks have been largely fruitless so far. Sporadic clashes on the frontline continue.