Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers has been scheduled for late June, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told reporters on June 10.

Minister Mammadyarov and Armenia's Edward Nalbadian are to meet to discuss preparations for a meeting of the presidents of the two countries, which have been locked in a bitter conflict for over two decades.

Mammadyarov said that on his way from Washington he held a meeting in London with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs -- who are brokering the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. According to him, the date and agenda of the forthcoming presidential meeting was discussed.

"The purpose of the meeting of the Presidents is the discussion of the serious issues of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I look forward to meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian to comprehensively discuss the preparation for the Presidents' meeting," the minister said.

Earlier it was reported that the meeting would be held on June 12. However, a diplomatic source from one of the Minsk Group delegations told Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS that the next round of talks planned for June 12 in Salzburg would not take place.

The source said "it will be possible to talk about such a meeting no earlier than at the end of summer or beginning of fall".

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenia's withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but Armenia has not followed them to this day.

Russia, France and the U.S. have long been working to broker a solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the OSCE Minsk Group, but their efforts have been largely fruitless so far.

Peace talks are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The document envisions a 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.