Kazakhstan attaches major importance to conflict settlement
23.01.2010 16:41 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ During their visit to Astana, the Co-Chairs of OSCE
Minsk Group met with Secretary of State – Foreign Minister of
Kazakhstan, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Kanat Saudabaev.

`Within the framework of preparation for the OSCE Chairmanship in
2010, delegation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of
Kazakhstan participated in the meeting of heads of OSCE field missions
in South Caucasus on September 24-25, 2009. The focus of the forum was
on political, economic and humanitarian issues of the region, as well
as its main issue – Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,’ says the release
posted on Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry website.

Kazakhstan’s chairmanship in OSCE attaches major importance to
settlement of unresolved conflicts on OSCE area and focuses special
importance on ensuring security and stability in the South Caucasus,
Kazakh Foreign Minister said during the meeting.

`We are hopeful that during Mr. Saudabaev’s upcoming tour we’ll be
able to approximate the positions of the mediators and the Chairman,’
said OSCE MG Russian Co-Chair Yuri Merzlyakov.

The Artsakh ( Nagorno Karabakh) Republic (NKR) is a de facto
independent republic located in the South Caucasus, bordering by
Azerbaijan to the north and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia to
the west.

After the Soviet Union established control over the area, in 1923 it
formed the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the
Azerbaijan SSR. In the final years of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan
launched an ethnic cleansing which resulted in the Karabakh War that
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 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.

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.