Azerbaijani foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov is ready to meet with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in the near future in order to begin comprehensive and substantive talks as noted during the Vienna meeting, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry’s spokesman, Hikmet Hajiyev, said.
He was commenting on the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick’s statement that the co-chairs intend to meet with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan prior to the upcoming June meeting of the two countries' presidents.
Warlick earlier said that the co-chairs hope to meet with the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in preparation for the June summit, as agreed on by the presidents, APA reports.
Recall, on the night of April 2 all frontier positions of Azerbaijan were exposed to heavy fire from large-caliber weapons, mortars, grenade launchers and guns. In addition, Azerbaijani settlements near the front line, densely populated by civilians, were shelled.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20% of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US, are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
