Pashinyan says there is progress in terms of resuming Karabakh talks

YEREVAN, December 5. /ARKA/. In a Facebook live broadcast today morning Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said there was some progress in terms of resumption of the negotiation process for the settlement of the Karabakh issue.

He recalled that earlier representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries - the foreign ministers of Russia and France, as well as the US Deputy Secretary of State made a joint statement to that end.

"There are important accents in their statement. The will and desire to work together to resolve the Karabakh conflict and restore a full-fledged negotiation process have been confirmed," Pashinyan said.

In a statement released on December 3, Russian Foreign Minister  Sergey Lavrov, Deputy Secretary of State of the United States Stephen E. Biegun and Minister for European and Foreign Affairs of France Jean-Yves Le Drian welcomed the cessation of military activities in the area of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

They called upon Armenia and Azerbaijan to continue implementing fully their obligations under the November 9 statement in Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts as well as their previous ceasefire commitments. 

They also called for the full and prompt departure from the region of all foreign mercenaries, and called upon all parties to facilitate this departure.

They reiterated their consistent and united position in favor of a negotiated, comprehensive, and sustainable settlement of all remaining core substantive issues of the conflict in line with the basic principles and elements well-known to both Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

From September 27 to November 9 2020 Azerbaijani armed forces, backed by Turkey and foreign mercenaries and terrorists, attacked Nagorno-Karabakh along the entire front line, using rocket and artillery weapons, heavy armored vehicles, military aircraft and prohibited types of weapons such as cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons. 

On November 9, the leaders of the Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities in Artsakh. According to the document, the parties stopped at where they were at that time. The town of Shushi, the districts of Aghdam, Kelbajar and Lachin are handed over to Azerbaijan, with the exception of a 5-kilometer corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenia. 

A 2000-member Russian peacekeeping contingent has been deployed along the contact line in Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor. Internally displaced persons and refugees are returning to Karabakh and adjacent regions, prisoners of war, hostages and other detained persons and bodies of the dead are being exchanged.--0-

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