OSCE MG calls for intensified talks on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

/By AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The Minsk Group of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe called on Baku and Yerevan to boost peace talks in view of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs - Igor Popov (Russia), James Warlick (U.S.), and Pierre Andrieu (France) stressed on the need for both the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to intensify dialogue, according to the April 30 statement.

The Minsk Group ambassadors traveled to Paris to meet with Armenian Foreign Minister, Edward Nalbandian, and separately with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, Elmar Mammadyarov. The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, also participated in the meetings.

Each minister reported separately on the meeting of his country's president with French President Francois Hollande respectively in Yerevan and Baku on April 24-25.

"We stressed to each minister on the importance for both presidents to intensify the dialogue and to continue the preparations for the next presidential meeting later this year. The ministers agreed to meet each other, together with the co-chairs, to shape the agenda for the presidents’ discussion, and welcomed an upcoming visit to the region by the co-chairs," the statement read.

Following the meeting with Elmar Mammadyarov on April 30, Warlick informed that key issues would be high on the agenda during the meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Warlick called the April 29 meeting with the Armenian minister "productive", saying that Yerevan was ready for peace in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Referring to the upcoming illegal "elections" in Nagorno-Karabakh, the mediators said none of the three co-chairing countries, nor any other country for that matter, recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent and sovereign state.

"Accordingly, we do not accept the results of these "elections" as affecting the legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh, and stress that they in no way prejudge the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh or the outcome of the ongoing negotiations to bring a lasting and peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," the co-chairs concluded.

Backed well by their patrons in Yerevan the separatist authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh are going to draw Baku into a new confrontation by holding fictitious "parliamentary elections" on May 3, 2015.

The Azerbaijani foreign ministry called the "parliamentary polls" in Nagorno-Karabakh illegal, saying that Baku would interpret any step taken by the puppet regime in these territories as an act of aggression on another country's territory.

Azerbaijan's internationally recognized Nagorno-Karabakh territory became a conflict zone following Armenia's aggression in the early 1990s. As a result of Armenia's armed invasion, 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory fell under Armenia's occupation. Nonetheless, the OSCE has attempted to foster a peaceful resolution to this conflict amid Armenia's persistent derailments.