Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian on Tuesday met with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov (Russia), James Warlick (U.S.), Pierre Andreu (France) and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. They continued with a discussion of the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Edward Nalbandian drew Co-Chairs’ attention to the fact that Baku, showing blatant disrespect for the statement by the OSCE Co-Chairs as of January 27, as well as the statement by the Chairperson-in-Office and Co-Chairs of the OSCE on February 7, continued gross violations of the ceasefire and provocations as well as unacceptable rhetoric.
Touching upon statements regarding the development of a peace agreement, the Armenian Foreign Minister said that the government of Azerbaijan in fact intended to thwart the results of the negotiations over basic principles of settlement. Baku is trying to take advantage of the situation to justify gross human rights violations, violence against the opposition.
“As soon as there is an agreement on the basic principles, and agreement by Nagorno-Karabakh, then it will be possible to begin negotiations between Azerbaijan, Armenia and Artsakh for the development of a comprehensive peace agreement,” Nalbandian stated.
Referring to attempts to introduce Azerbaijani secateurs as “lost sheep”, the Minister said such attempts are untenable.
“Their crimes have been proved, including on the part of abduction, torture and brutal murder of 17-year-old young man,” Nalbandian added.
