YEREVAN, June 27, /ARKA/. Speaking at a joint press briefing today in Yerevan with the visiting Maltese colleague Carmel Abela, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan commented on the statements made earlier by his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov after their meeting in Washington, USA.
Elmar Mammadyarov reportedly said after the Washington meeting that the situation along the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh should not be an obstacle to substantive negotiations on a political settlement of the conflict. He also called for the withdrawal of Armenian troops from several regions surrounding the administrative borders of former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region and the deployment of peacekeepers.
Mnatsakanyan said today that in Washington they had discussed a wide range of issues, including steps to reduce tensions on the line of contact.
"The meeting took place amid a certain increase in tension and naturally, that could not fail to have an effect on the meeting. We devoted much of our discussions to that reality and discussed all those steps that are necessary to reduce tension," said Mnatsakanyan.
Mnatsakanyan said there are several initiatives that were put forward also by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. "I believe that in this regard we will be able to create an atmosphere before the next meeting that will facilitate the peace talks," he said.
‘We do not believe that effective practical progress is possible in peace talks when the tension is heightening. We do not believe that, on the one hand, it is possible to negotiate, and, on the other, to shoot," said the minister.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into armed clashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan sought to secede from Azerbaijan and declared its independence backed by a successful referendum.
On May 12, 1994, the Bishkek cease-fire agreement put an end to the military operations. A truce was brokered by Russia in 1994, although no permanent peace agreement has been signed.
Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions have been under the control of Armenian forces of Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is the longest-running post-Soviet era conflict and has continued to simmer despite the relative peace of the past two decades, with snipers causing tens of deaths a year.
On April 2, 2016, Azerbaijan launched military assaults along the entire perimeter of its contact line with Nagorno-Karabakh. Four days later a cease-fire was reached. -0—
