Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, Igor Popov of Russia, Jacques Faure of France, and James Warlick of the U.S., will start their visit to region from this week.

The co-chairs are planned to hold meetings with the state officials in Baku on February 3.

Warlick wrote on his Twitter page that the co-chairs will meet with Azerbaijani and Armenian President during the visit. "Returning to Azerbaijan and Armenia to meet with both Presidents," he wrote.

Armenian media reported citing Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan that the OSCE mediators will visit Yerevan on February 5.

High-level meetings will be held within the visit.

Earlier, the OSCE co-chairs travelled to the region on December 15-19 to discuss recent developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace 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.