Azernews.Az

BAKU – OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Audronius Azubalis on Tuesday met OSCE mediators brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, the organization’s website said.

Azubalis voiced support for the efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to achieve a breakthrough at the negotiations on the Karabakh conflict, and called for more civil society involvement in the implementation of confidence-building measures. "It will contribute to the resolution of the conflict, and will strengthen confidence among the societies," Azubalis added.

The Minsk Group co-chairs - Bernard Fassier of France, Robert Bradtke of the United States, and Igor Popov of Russia – informed Azubalis about the meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders held with their Russian counterpart’s mediation in late June, which was an attempt to agree on basic principles for a settlement of the Karabakh conflict. The co-chairs, accompanied by Andrzej Kasprzyk, the OSCE chairperson’s personal envoy, also discussed the prospects of a solution of the long-standing dispute, and planned negotiating initiatives for the remaining year.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan, 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.

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.

The OSCE Minsk Group was established in 1992 to encourage a negotiated resolution to the Karabakh conflict. The negotiation process is headed by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group. Ambassador Kasprzyk represents the OSCE сhairperson in the process, and his office monitors the ceasefire.