The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – French Ambassador Bernard Fassier, US Ambassador Robert Bradtke and Russian Ambassador Igor Popov, expect particular activity from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict sides in the next months, Trend reports, quoting the OSCE Minsk Group's official statement.
As part of their peace efforts in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have urged the conflicting parties to be particularly active in the months leading up to the OSCE Summit. According to the statement, the co-chairs will travel to Baku, Yerevan, and Nagorno-Karabakh in the period of September 6-10 to discuss additional actions necessary to keep the cease-fire treaty in place and to promote a spirit of compromise and cooperation. Then they will travel to Washington D.C. and on to New York to discuss the issue with the United Nations General Assembly.
Between late September and mid-October, the co-chairs will return to the region to conduct a field assessment to observe the humanitarian situation in the vicinity of Nagorno-Karabakh. A team of high-level advisers and experts, including representatives from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and others, are expected to accompany the co-chairs on their mission, which will be the first international mission in this region since the OSCE mission in early 2005. Shortly thereafter, the co-chairs will brief the OSCE Minsk Group in Vienna on their findings. Then the co-chairs will present their annual activity report to the OSCE's Permanent Council and prepare the OSCE Summit in Astana.
During this period of intense activity, the co-chairs urge all parties to respect the cease-fire and to exercise restraint on the ground, to make every effort to foster the spirit of compromise necessary to make progress, to abstain from hostile public statements, and to demonstrate their political will to carry on a serious dialogue. In response to the most recent incidents along the line of contact, they strongly condemn any violation of the cease-fire and useless loss of life, creating a legacy of conflict and hostility that would last for generations.
