OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs set to visit region in late March

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs from Russia, France and USA will visit Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh on March 27, Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandian said today at a briefing with the visiting Greek foreign minister Nikos Kodzias.

YEREVAN, March 10. /ARKA/. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs from Russia, France and USA will visit Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh on March 27, Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandian said today at a briefing with the visiting Greek foreign minister Nikos Kodzias. He said the peace brokers will also visit Azerbaijan.

He said the co-chairs will try to get the negotiation process moving, but for this it is necessary to exclude the repeat of violence instigated by Azerbaijan in 2016 April and create favorable conditions for negotiations.

Nalbandian said Armenia does not refuse to meet at any level, and Azerbaijan, for its part, should be ready for negotiations, instead of conducting a dialogue in the language of blackmail.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into armed clashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan sought to secede from Azerbaijan and declared its independence backed by a successful referendum.

On May 12, 1994, the Bishkek cease-fire agreement put an end to the military operations. A truce was brokered by Russia in 1994, although no permanent peace agreement has been signed. Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions have been under the control of Armenian forces of Karabakh. 

Nagorno-Karabakh is the longest-running post-Soviet era conflict and has continued to simmer despite the relative peace of the past two decades, with snipers causing tens of deaths a year.

On April 2, 2016, Azerbaijan launched military assaults along the entire perimeter of its contact line with Nagorno-Karabakh. Four days later a cease-fire was reached. -0-