Armenian foreign minister: Baku hinders progress in talks

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan on May 16 received the Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.

News.am reported citing the press service of Armenian Foreign Ministry that while commenting on the 20th anniversary of the ceasefire agreement, Minister Nalbandyan said that in the past 20 years Azerbaijan has blatantly violated not only the May 12, 1994 ceasefire between Azerbaijan, Karabakh and Armenia, but also the tripartite ceasefire agreements of February 4, 1995. In his words, Azerbaijan carried out numerous provocations on the border with Armenia and the Line of Contact with Karabakh and refuses to implement the initiatives to withdraw snipers from the Line of Contact and set up a commission for incidents’ investigation, which seriously impedes the efforts of Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair states to advance the negotiations.

According to Nalbandyan, following the meeting of two presidents in Vienna last November, there was hope that the negotiating process could make headway, but the Azerbaijani side took a step backwards, which also often happened previously.

This was especially obvious at the meeting of the foreign ministers with the OSCE Group Co-chairs when the Azerbaijani side rejected the Co-chairs’ proposal made in line with the agreement of the two presidents in Vienna.

Edward Nalbandyan stressed that because of its destructive policy and the rejection of numerous proposals of the Co-chairs, Baku hinders progress in talks and does everything it can to maintain the status quo.