OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS CALL AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA FOR WORKING JOINTLY TO STRENGTHEN MUTUAL CONFIDENCE
Noyan Tapan
Dec 4, 2008
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. Operations are not a solution to
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. This was mentioned in the statement of
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Assistant Secretary of State
Daniel Fried, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who met within
the framework of OSCE Minsk Group today, on December 4, in Helsinki.
According to the report of the Regnum agency, author’s statements
called Armenia and Azerbaijan for confirming their adherence to
the peaceful settlement of the conflict. They called all conflict
sides for using the positive impulse reached during the Presidents’
meeting in Moscow. "The Moscow Declaration signed on November 2 opened
a new and promising phase in our common attempt to spread peace in
the South Caucasus. In that declaration the Presidents confirmed
their commitments to search for a peaceful solution to the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict within the framework of the basic principles worked
out by Minsk Group in cooperation with the leaders of Armenia and
Azerbaijan on the basis of their proposals made last year in Madrid,"
the Ministers’ statement read. They called the sides for cooperating
with the Minsk Group Co-chairs to complete the work at the basic
principles in the coming months and then to start making a draft
all-embracing peaceful settlement on the basis of those principles.
Sergei Lavrov, Daniel Fried, and Bernard Kouchner called the sides for
carrying out measures on strengthening confidence together with the
Co-chairs, starting with withdrawal of snipers from conflict sides’
advanced positions, as it had been already proposed to the sides’
leaderships by the mediators during their last trip to the region
in mid-November 2008. "The sides extremely need to work with each
other, with the Co-chairs, and with the Special Representative of the
OSCE Chairman-in-Office to stabilize the ceasefire regime through
that and other measures on strengthening confidence," the document
authors conclude.