OSCE to monitor Azerbaijani and Armenian troops’ contact line

The OSCE will monitor the Nagorno-Karabakh contact line near the Ashagi Abdurrakhmanli village of Azerbaijan’s Fizuli district on October 20, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring will be carried out by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office's personal representative Hristo Hristov, Simon Tiller and representative of the OSCE High Level Planning Group, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Nepokrytykh.

On the opposite side, the monitoring will be conducted by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office's personal representative Jiri Aberle, Peter Svedberg and representative of the OSCE High Level Planning Group, Mayor Christian Hirsch.

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.