RA President, OSCE MG US Co-Chair discuss Karabakh problem
16.01.2010 16:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenians President Serzh Sargsyan met Saturday with
US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassador Robert Bradtke to
discuss the current stage of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement
process, the RA leader’s press office reported.

The Nagorno Karabakh conflict broke out in 1988 as result of the
ethnic cleansing launched by Azerbaijan in the final years of the
Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from 1991 to 1994. Since the
ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several regions of
Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the control of
Nagorno Karabakh defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan have since been
holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group.

The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 by the Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, now Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)) to encourage a peaceful, negotiated
resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

The Helsinki Additional Meeting of the CSCE Council on 24 March 1992,
requested the Chairman-in-Office to convene as soon as possible a
conference on Nagorno Karabakh under the auspices of the CSCE to
provide an ongoing forum for negotiations towards a peaceful
settlement of the crisis on the basis of the principles, commitments
and provisions of the CSCE. The Conference is to take place in Minsk.
Although it has not to this date been possible to hold the conference,
the so-called Minsk Group spearheads the OSCE effort to find a
political solution to this conflict.

On December 6 , 1994, the Budapest Summit decided to establish a
co-chairmanship for the process.

Implementing the Budapest decision, the Chairman-in-Office issued on
23 March 1995, the mandate for the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Process.

The main objectives of the Minsk Process are as follows: Providing an
appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of assuring
the negotiation process supported by the Minsk Group; Obtaining
conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation of the
armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk
Conference; Promoting the peace process by deploying OSCE
multinational peacekeeping forces.

The Minsk Process can be considered to be successfully concluded if
the objectives referred to above are fully met.

The Minsk Group is headed by a Co-Chairmanship consisting of France,
Russia and the United States. Furthermore, the Minsk Group also
includes the following participating States: Belarus, Germany, Italy,
Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Turkey as well as Armenia
and Azerbaijan. Current Co-chairmen of the Minsk Group are: Ambassador
Bernard Fassier of France, Ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov of the Russian
Federation and Ambassador Robert Bradtke of the United States.