Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The OSCE Minsk Group is hopeful for the soonest meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents to discuss a peaceful settlement of the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair from the United States, James Warlick has voiced hope that a date and venue will be soon confirmed for a summit of presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“We hope to have a date and venue for the summit confirmed soon,” he told Trend.

Warlick noted that in the meantime, the co-chairs and the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers continue to work out arrangements for the summit, including its agenda.

Armenian media earlier quoted an Armenian official as saying that the meeting between the presidents is expected to be held in early December.

However, Novruz Mammadov, Deputy Head of Azerbaijani Presidential Administration and Chief of the Administration’s Foreign Relations Department said a decision on the meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents has not been made yet.

The latest meeting between President Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan took place in Paris, France last October.

The Paris talks were expected to bring some breakthrough in the stalled conflict, but Armenia’s provocative actions and intensive ceasefire violations have aggravated the situation even more.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict that emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, the Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by U.S., Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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