Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

French ambassador to Azerbaijan said the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are preparing the next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents.

Pascal Monnier welcomed the recent meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents, saying France is enthusiastic about it.

Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsian met in Vienna on November 19.

"The heads of states met to improve communication and mutual understanding, and we have a positive attitude towards it," he said.

Monnier expressed belief that a new impetus has been given to the dialogue between the two countries on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and said France supports this process.

"France, as a co-chair, feels responsible for the success of the meetings on the resolution of the conflict," he said.

He also said that France supports the relationship between the conflicting parties, including at the level of civil society.

Monnier also said that a meeting of the representatives of the two countries' civil societies will be held in Strasbourg, on November 28-29.

He added that a joint declaration is expected to be signed at the meeting.

Meanwhile, U.S. co-chair James Warlick assessed the presidents' meeting as a good start.

"I was pleased with the outcome of the meeting, and look forward to developing next steps when we see the foreign ministers in Kyiv in early December," Warlick told the Trend news agency.

According to him, this meeting is only a first step towards getting this peace process back on track and addressing the needs and concerns of people affected by the conflict.

The Presidents discussed the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The Foreign Ministers of the two countries and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Igor Popov of Russia, Jacques Faure of France, and James Warlick of the United States, and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson in Office also participated at the meeting.

The Minsk Group mediators said in a statement following the talks that during their private one-on-one meeting and the working session afterward with the co-chairs and the Ministers, the Presidents discussed a broad range of issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

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.

Long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.