Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Yerevan and Baku re-committed to respecting the ceasefire on the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops during the Olympic Games in Sochi, the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick said.

"Good news. The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan re-committed to respecting the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire during the Sochi Olympics," Warlick wrote on his official Twitter account.

The situation remains tense on the contact line. Earlier Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported that most ceasefire violations are observed in the directions of Fizuli, Agdam, Terter, Goranboy, Khojavend and Jabrayil districts. Thus, the ceasefire was violated 2000 times from January 21 up until now. In all cases, the shooting was countered by return fire.

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Igor Popov (Russia), James Warlick (U.S.), Jacques Faure (France) and the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk visited the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict region on February 4-6 where they met with the leaderships of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Warlick further said that good talks have been held with the Armenian president in Yerevan on peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"No date yet for summit, but Armenian president emphasized continued dialogue towards peace in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," James Warlick said.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs expressed their deep concern over continued violence in the region, according to the organization's statement on the results of the Paris meeting between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian.

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 and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.