Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan may meet again early 2013

YEREVAN, December 7. /ARKA/. Another meeting of Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov is scheduled for early 2013. 

Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs met with OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen (Ambassadors Robert Bradtke of the United States of America, Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, and Jacques Faure of France) and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk in Dublin, where Mr. Nalbandyan said another meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart may be held at the beginning of the next year. 

“The officials also discussed the issues related to Karabakh conflict settlement,” according to the source.

Mr. Nalbandyan is currently participating in OSCE Ministerial Council session in Ireland’s capital. 

Last time, Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers met in Paris on October 27 under the mediation of OSCE Minsk Group. 

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in 1988 after the predominantly Armenian-populated Karabakh declared about secession from Azerbaijan. 

As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the Karabakh’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’s 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. -0-