the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk visits Lachin Corridor on Aug. 25

Azerbaijan on Friday refused to meet with the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk, who has led the group’s efforts in the region for the past several decades.

Kasprzyk traveled to the Armenian side of the Lachin corridor to inspect the situation on the ground, after which he was scheduled to meet with Azerbaijan.

The APA news agency reported that “official Baku did not see the need for his visit, considered it a waste of time and did not agree.”

Kasprzyk visited the entrance of the Lachin Corridor in the village of Kornidzor in Armenia’s Syunik Province and became acquainted with the situation on the ground, including observing that the convoy trucks carrying humanitarian assistance to Artsakh has been stranded in the village at the foot of the Hakari Bridge.

Kasprzyk told reporters that he’s visiting the entrance of the Lachin Corridor at the instruction of Chairperson-in-Office of the OSCE Bujar Osmani.

“I’ve instructed to visit the adjacent regions of the Lachin Corridor, get acquainted with the situation and report to him. I’ve had many meetings yesterday, and today as you can see I am here, I will return to report on the situation,” Kasprzyk said.

Kasprzyk met with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on August 22.

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan on Thursday refused to meet the foreign minister Hadja Lahbib after she urged Azerbaijan to lift its blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh and recognize Armenia’s borders.

The Azerbaijani government-linked news agency APA cited an unnamed government source as saying that the meeting will not take place because Lahbib made “pro-Armenian statements that are far from reality” in Yerevan.