Interfax, Russia
March 7 2009

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs welcome Azeri, Armenian leader’ intention
to meet

BAKU March 7

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group for settling the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict welcome Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s and
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s intention to meet.

"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," says a joint
statement signed by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, Ambassador Yury
Merzlyakov of Russia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew
Bryza of the U.S., and Ambassador Bernard Fassier of France, available
on the OSCE website.

Merzlyakov, Bryza, and Fassier welcomed "the frank and open
discussions of these issues with the two Presidents since their last
meeting in Zurich." They said they "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," the statement says.