MG mediators, OSCE head to mull Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution
By Sara Rajabova
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will meet with the new OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for 2014 and Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter next week.
"Co-chairs Igor Popov (Russia), Jacques Faure (France) and James Warlick (USA) will meet with Burkhalter in Bern," a diplomatic source told Trend Agency.
The sides will discuss the process of peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the meeting.
The diplomatic source also expressed hope that the next meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers will be held in late January.
The OSCE co-chairs travelled to the region in December to discuss recent developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.
Prior to his appointment as OSCE Chairman, Burkhalter voiced readiness to promote the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
He said Switzerland, as the chairman of the OSCE, will look into possibilities to promote dialogue and confidence-building measures between the parties involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by actively supporting and strengthening existing mediation schemes such as the OSCE Minsk process.
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's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.
Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs, dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.