Azernews.Az

OSCE mediators have discussed the course of settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh with the Armenian foreign minister, Mediamax news agency reported.

During the meeting, held in New York, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and Eduard Nalbandyan mulled enforcement of the agreement to investigate clashes on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, reached at the October 2010 meeting of the two countries’ presidents in Astrakhan brokered by the Russian leader.

Nalbandyan was quoted as saying that if Baku backs down from the proposed 10 amendments to the Basic Principles, a peace outline currently under discussion, which were made at the latest presidential meeting in Kazan in late June, progress will be reached in Karabakh settlement.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov earlier accused Yerevan of putting forward new demands at the Kazan meeting.

Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a brutal war in the early 1990s. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including the Nagorno Karabakh region, has been under the occupation of Armenian armed forces since the 1994 ceasefire. Peace talks, brokered by the United States, Russia and France through the Minsk Group, have been largely fruitless so far.

The Basic Principles, which lie at the core of the ongoing peace talks, include the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijani control; determining the legal status of Nagorno Karabakh; a corridor linking Armenia to the region; and the right of IDPs and refugees to return home.