Azerbaijani President receives OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group Stephane Visconti, Igor Popov, Richard Hoagland, as well as Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk today.

President noted that after the co-chairs' visit to Armenia and the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and just before their arrival in Azerbaijan, Armenia carried out another provocation against Azerbaijan at the contact line, which resulted in the death of one Azerbaijani soldier. "The Azerbaijani army retaliated adequately as usual, and you know the result," he said.

“It’s no surprise to me because Armenia carries out such provocations on the eve of every significant event or your visits. We have witnessed this happen a couple of times, in 2014 and 2015, and now. They surely know that we will retaliate for any provocation done against our civilians or military servicemen,” APA cited him as saying.

At the same time, Azerbaijan abides by the ceasefire regime and the current situation along the contact line is relatively silent, which is an important factor for accelerating the negotiations, Ilham Aliyev said.

“But what happened recently made it clear that Armenia is trying every possible way to interfere with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs’ activities,” he noted.

Russian Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Popov, in turn, said that a serious violation of the ceasefire along the line of contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops on the eve of the co-chairs’ visit to Azerbaijan is deeply regrettable.

"A statement we will adopt following our visit will reflect the situation on the contact line,” he added.