Azernews.Az

BAKU – The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs said Thursday after holding talks in Azerbaijan and Armenia that they had discussed with the parties steps to finalize the basic principles that would be a basis for a peace settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

"In preparation for the upcoming meeting of Presidents Medvedev, Aliyev, and Sargsyan, the co-chairs discussed with the sides steps to finalize and endorse the Basic Principles as a framework for a comprehensive peace settlement, as urged by Presidents Medvedev, Obama, and Sarkozy in their May 26 joint statement in Deauville, France," said the statement assessing the outcomes of the co-chairs’ visit to the region.

The leaders of the countries co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group brokering Karabakh settlement – Russia, the United States and France - issued a statement at the G8 summit on May 26 calling on the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia "to prepare their people for peace, not war". Presidents Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev urged the two presidents to demonstrate political will and finalize the basic principles of a peace agreement during the summit in the Russian city of Kazan on June 25.

The Minsk Group co-chairs - Bernard Fassier of France, Robert Bradtke of the United States, and Igor Popov of Russia, traveled June 6-9 to Baku, Azerbaijan’s occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region, and Yerevan. The co-chairs met separately with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, and the leader of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic. On Tuesday, the mediators crossed the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops by foot in Azerbaijan’s Agdam region.

"This was the third such crossing by the co-chairs in ten months - as many as were completed in the previous sixteen years combined - demonstrating that the sides can cooperate to implement and observe fully the 1994 ceasefire," the statement said. "In that regard, the co-chairs called upon the parties to avoid any provocative actions or statements that might undermine the negotiating process during this critical period."

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war in the early 1990s that ended with the signing of a precarious cease-fire. Armenian armed forces have since occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno Karabakh. Peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.