Azernews.Az

MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday hosted OSCE mediators brokering settlement to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict to discuss the outcomes of the Moscow-brokered talks between the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders held in late June, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs - Bernard Fassier of France, Robert Bradtke of the United States and Igor Popov of Russia – as well as the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Andrzej Kasprzyk, mulled coordination of the co-chairing countries’ further efforts aiming to resolve the long-standing dispute.

Minister Lavrov paid visits to Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday during which he submitted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s letter to Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan citing his proposals made following their talks in the Russian city of Kazan that did not yield fruit.

President Medvedev hosted his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts in the Volga city of Kazan on June 24, the ninth in a series of trilateral meetings on the Karabakh conflict. The leaders of the mediating countries had urged to finalize a roadmap of a peace agreement during the Kazan summit. But the parties did not sign such a document, though they said in a joint statement after the talks that some progress had been made in the peace process.

Meanwhile, the Russian foreign minister elaborated on President Medvedev’s appeal. Lavrov said on the foreign ministry’s blog on Twitter that the appeal was due to the fact that time has come for the conflict parties to reach agreement.

"We are waiting for a reply," Lavrov was quoted as saying on the blog.

Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a brutal war in the early 1990s. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, has been under the occupation of Armenian armed forces since a fragile ceasefire was signed in 1994. Peace talks are underway on the basis of the Basic Principles, a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs. The principles include the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijani control; determining the final legal status of Nagorno Karabakh; a corridor linking Armenia to the region; and the right of all internally displaced persons to return home.