STEPANAKERT–The Foreign Ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic issued an announcement Monday regarding the upcoming Summit of Foreign Ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe–scheduled to begin Thursday in Copenhagen. Among other issues–the ten-year-old Karabakh conflict is slated to be discussed at this meeting.
In the announcement–the foreign ministry urged all the sides to the conflict to express their willingness to avoid posturing based on outside pressures or threats–and reaffirmed its commitment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
"The OSCE-sponsored peace talks provide a unique opportunity for a lasting and fair resolution to the conflict," read the statement–adding–however–that "the abrupt shift toward prioritizing methodological issues is a great cause for concern and a hindrance to the objective of a lasting resolution to the conflict."
The statement also argued that the proper institutions of the OSCE should provide a legal assessment to the existing political situation–"to that end we have called on the Minsk Group co-chairmanship to suggest to the OSCE Foreign Minister’s Summit to
a. Reflect the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s role as a side to the conflict and within all stages of negotiations–including the Minsk Conference;
b. Talks between the sides should take place without any preset criteria which could predetermine the outcome of those negotiations."
"Such an approach," argued the foreign ministry–"would break the current [deadlock] process of the talks," and would allow–without any constraints–the discussion of the conflict’s fundamental issues–without which the resolution of the conflict would be impossible.
In conclusion the Karabakh foreign ministry urged the OSCE Foreign Minister’s Summit–to utilize all its resources and adopt a resolution on continuing the peace talks based on OSCE norms and principles.
