President Serzh Sargsyan and OSCE Minsk group co-chairs discuss Karabakh issue

YEREVAN, July 18. / ARKA /. President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, received today the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Bernard Fassier (France), Robert Bradtke (USA), Igor Popov (Russia) and the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk who have arrived to Yerevan in the framework of a regional visit, Sargsyan’s press office said.. It said the parties discussed issues pertinent to the current stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in 1988 after the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave declared secession from Azerbaijan As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted in 1991, December 10, to secede from Azerbaijan and in the process proclaimed the enclave the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Full-scale fighting, initiated by Azerbaijan, erupted in the late winter of 1992. International mediation by several groups, including Europe's OSCE, failed to bring an end resolution that both sides could work with. In the spring of 1993, Armenian forces captured regions outside the enclave itself. By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of most of the enclave and also held and currently control seven regions beyond the administrative borders of Nagorno-Karabakh. Almost 1 million people on both sides have been displaced as a result of the conflict. A Russian- -brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994 and peace talks, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, have been held ever since by Armenia and Azerbaijan.-M.M. -0