On November 14 OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov, Jacques Faure and James Warlick and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk addressed the OSCE permanent Council.
The Minsk Group Co-Chairs presented the work done in 2013 towards the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict. They reiterated the position of the co-chairing countries that there is no alternative to the peaceful settlement of the issue. They attached importance to the forthcoming meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan later this month, noting that it could give new impetus to the negotiation process.
Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk presented the activity of his office, focusing particularly on the monitoring of the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, as well as the confidence-building measures.
Addressing the Permanent Council, the Head of the Armenian mission to the OSCE, Ambassador Arman Kirakosyan highly appreciated the Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ efforts targeted at the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict.
The Armenian side attached importance to the implementation of the agreements reached by the joint declaration of the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan in Sochi on January 23, 2012 and underlined that the Basic Principles should be viewed as a whole.
Ambassador Kirakosyan stressed the importance of creation of a mechanism for investigation of border accidents envisaged by the joint declaration, which would contribute to the reinforcement of the ceasefire regime and create favorable conditions for progress in the negotiation process.
Arman Kirakosyan reiterated Armenia’s position that the Nagorno Karabakh issue should be solved exceptionally in a peaceful way on the basis of the principles of international law, also as the statements adopted by the Presidents of the co-chairing countries in l’Aquilla, Muskoka, Deauville, Los Cabos and Enniskillen and the statements adopted within the framework of OSCE ministerial conferences in Helsinki, Athens, Almaty, Vilnius and Dublin.
