APA, Azerbaijan
March 7 2009

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs issue next statement

[ 07 Mar 2009 11:24 ]

Baku. Viktoria Dementieva ` APA. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group
— Ambassador Yury Merzlyakov of Russia, Ambassador Bernard Fassier of
France, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza of the
United States — have today issued the next statement, APA reports
quoting OSCE’s press service.

`The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group traveled to Baku,
Nagorno-Karabakh, Yerevan, and back to Baku between February 27 –
March 3, 2009. In Baku and Yerevan they met with the Presidents of
Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as their Foreign Ministers, and in
Nagorno-Karabakh the Co-Chairs met with the de facto authorities and
representatives of civil society. The Presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan expressed their desire to continue meeting regularly. The
Co-Chairs will therefore seek to organize a summit of the two
Presidents in the coming months to discuss the key unresolved issues
within the Basic Principles for the peaceful settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Co-Chairs welcome the frank and open
discussions of these issues with the two Presidents since their last
meeting in Zurich, and hope to continue to make progress in the talks
by clarifying and narrowing the differences between the sides so that
a peaceful settlement can be reached in the soonest possible
timeframe.

While welcoming the continuation of a dialogue between the sides, the
Co-Chairs condemn the ceasefire violation along the Line of Contact on
February 26, 2009, which occurred during a monitoring mission
conducted by the Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-Office,
Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk. The Co-Chairs deplore that in 2008 over
30 people were killed and more than 50 injured, and another six killed
since the beginning of this year, as a result of ceasefire
violations. The Co-Chairs urge the parties to review again their
proposal to consolidate the ceasefire, which was made at the OSCE
Ministerial Council in Helsinki in December 2008,’ the statement says.