OSCE MG Co-Chairs to visit region late in March

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will visit Armenia’s Yerevan, Nagorno-Karabakh’s Stepanakert, and Azerbaijan’s Baku by late March or early in April, a spokesman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry Andrey Nesterenko said.

“Late in March or early in April the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are going to pay a visit to Yerevan, Stepanakert, and Baku to try to reconcile the sides’ positions over Basic Principles of settlement to the conflict,” told journalists Nesterenko at Thursday’s briefing in Moscow.

He referred to the fact that Co-Chairs had delivered to President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan the updated version of the Madrid Document of November 2007, containing the Co-Chairs' latest articulation of the Basic Principles.

According to Andrey Nesterenko, the mediators have been talking on updated proposals since they’d delivered them. Within the framework of talks the Co-Chairs met with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister last week and are reported to meet with Armenian Foreign Minister Nalbandian next week.

“For all I know, the same issues should be discussed during Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to France,” Nesterenko said, adding that earlier the meeting between Armenian President and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev had the same agenda.