FOREIGN MINISTERS AND DEPUTY MINISTER OF FRANCE, RUSSIA AND USA SIGN JOINT DECLARATION ON NAGORNO KARABAKH

ARMENPRESS
Dec 4, 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS: Foreign ministers and the deputy
minister of the OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairing countries signed today
a joint declaration on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The declaration
runs as following, "We, the Foreign Ministers and Deputy Minister of
the OSCE Minsk Group’s Co-Chair countries – France, Russia, and the
United States – call on the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
to build on the positive momentum established during the meeting of
the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow on November 2,
2008. The Moscow Declaration signed that same day opened a new and
promising phase in our shared endeavor to expand peace in the South
Caucasus. In that declaration, the Presidents reaffirm their commitment
to advancing a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
in the framework of the Basic Principles developed by the Minsk Group
Co-Chairs in collaboration with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan
on the basis of their proposals advanced last year in Madrid.

We call on the parties to work with the Co-Chairs to finalize the Basic
Principles in coming months, and then begin drafting a comprehensive
peace settlement as outlined by those agreed principles. In keeping
with the Moscow Declaration, we call on the parties to work with
the Co-Chairs to develop confidence-building measures, beginning
with pulling back snipers from the Line of Contact to save lives of
innocent civilians and soldiers as our mediators already proposed to
the sides at the highest level during the last visit mid November. It
is urgent for the parties to work with each other, the Co-Chairs,
and the Personal Representative of the Chairman in Office to stabilize
the ceasefire through this and other measures. We reiterate our firm
view that there is no military solution to the conflict and call on
the parties to recommit to a peaceful resolution."