ARMENIAN, RUSSIAN, AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENTS TO MEET IN SOCHI JAN. 25
PanARMENIAN.Net
20.01.2010 14:55 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A trilateral meeting between Armenian, Russian and
Azerbaijani leaders will take place in Sochi on January 25.
The OSCÐ~U Minsk Group Co-Chairs have arrived in the region to arrange
the meeting between Presidents Serzh Sargsyan, Dmitry Medvedev and
Ilham Aliyev, an informed source told PanARMENIAN.Net.
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.
On 6 December 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.
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.
The Madrid principles contain the proposals put forward by the OSCE
Minsk Group co-chairs on the basic principles of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict settlement. The document was presented to the Armenian and
Azerbaijani representatives at the OSCE summit in the Spanish capital
in November 2007.