ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Jan 17 2008

OSCE MG co-chairs hope to resume monitoring at contact line between
sides to Karabakh conflict

YEREVAN, January 17. /ARKA/. The Co-Chairs of OSCE Minsk Group hope
to resume the regular monitoring at the contact line between the
sides to the Karabakh conflict, the OSCE MG Co-Chair from Russia Yury
Merzlyakov said in Yerevan in commenting the break of the monitoring.

`The monitoring was suspended because both parties started
interpreting the procedure of organizing the monitoring in a
different way,’ Merzlyakov said.

According to him, the issue was solved during the last visit of the
Co-Chairs to the region, but later the sides kept on maintaining
their interpretations of the monitoring procedure.

Merzlyakov said that the Special Representative of OSCE Acting
Chairman Andjey Kasprshik applied to the Co-Chairs for the second
time asking them to interfere in the situation. Consequently, the
Co-Chairs visited the contact line and `asked the sides not to bring
up arguments, but conduct monitoring’.

`Up to the end we were not sure how efficient the initiative will be,
but both sides were constructive and this time they understood the
basic principles, and we hope that the same will happen later on,’
Merzlyakov said.

The French Co-Chair of OSCE MG Bernard Fassier, in his turn,
expressed hope that yesterday’s monitoring of the contact line
between the sides to the conflict will serve a starting point for
resumption of monitoring on regular basis. He said that about 30
people died in the incidents at the contact line in 2007.

`This is unacceptable, as it is somehow a break of the cease-fire
regime. We believe nobody should become a victim of any processes,’
Fassier said.

The Special Representative of OSCE Acting Chairman Andjey Kasprshik
said that the next monitoring of the contact line is expected to be
carried out at the end of the month. Yet, the issue needs to be
clarified and agreed on in respective agencies, Kasprishik said.

The monitoring of the contact line between the armed forces of
Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan toward Aghdam, near Yusifjanlu
settlement found no violation of the cease-fire regime. N.V. -0–