After a four-day visit to the region, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen—Igor Popov of Russia, Stéphane Visconti of France, and Andrew Schofer of the United States—issued an announcement Thursday in which they said that they proposed concrete steps for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution process.
During their latest visit, the co-chairs, along with the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Andrzej Kasprzyk, met with officials in Yerevan, Baku and Stepanakert to assess the latest development in the region.
Below is the text of the announcement.
The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, together with the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Andrzej Kasprzyk, visited the region from May 27 to 30.
The Co-Chairs met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan on May 27 and with President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on 30 May. In both capitals, they held consultations with the respective Foreign Ministers and Defence Ministers. On May 28, the Co-Chairs met with the de facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh. In Baku, the Co-Chairs met with the Chairman of the Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno-Karabakh. While in Nagorno-Karabakh, the mediators were briefed on humanitarian issues by the local representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The main purpose of the visit was to assess the evolution of the situation on the line of contact and the international border, and to follow up on the discussions held by the Azerbaijani President and the Armenian Prime Minister in Vienna on March 29 and their respective Foreign Ministers in Moscow on April 15.
As requested, the Co-Chairs provided proposals for concrete next steps in the settlement process, including on humanitarian and security measures. The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan accepted the Co-Chairs’ proposal to meet soon under their auspices, and will announce details at the appropriate time.
The Co-Chairs expressed deep concern about recent casualties and called on the parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid escalation.
The useless OSCE does not particularly care who is doing the shooting. Its always spews some vague meaningless statements about the Azeri contact line violations. It amazes me we always wait and strive and yearn for approval from odars. The Armenians needs to stop this defensive posture. Yes that strategy might stall an all out war but that’s only temporary as it seems our young soldiers are getting picked off one at a time without any consequences. That’s no condition to put our soldiers in. That is demoralizing as that is a clear position of weakness. Then the usual “investigation” is carried out, as if that ever solved anything or stopped the fatal action of the Asian foothills invading adversary.. Also when is the diaspora youth going to be allowed to enlist and fight? When is there going to be a concerted effort to indoctrinate the vast resource of Armenians all over the world to become soldiers and protect the mother land and purposefully liberate more lands? WHEN?? What a mistake. No one wants war but its obvious the Azeris want the Armenian totally gone. What part of that doesn’t Armenia get? WAKE UP!
Igor getting his hefty pay, and Axeri oilman pumping oil!
Bringing up the issue of the “Azerbaijani Community of Karabak” by OSCE group is a very bad news for the Armenian side because it does not seem to be a simple issue to be solved easily but a major hardship for the peace process.
I have concrete steps too. Artsakh is region(not an other country) of Armenia and any threat to Artsakh is a threat to Armenia and Armenians.