ArmInfo. The October 16 meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan is important from the point of view of creating conditions for the activation of the negotiation process, which was severely damaged as a result of the aggression launched by Azerbaijan in April 2016 against Artsakh. This is stated in the statement of the NKR MFA, received in ArmInfo.
"We are convinced that one of the bases for the promotion of the negotiation process is the strict observance of the 1994 and 1995 agreements, as well as the implementation of earlier agreements, in particular, the application of the incident investigation mechanism, and the increase in the staff of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office and the increase of his monitoring opportunities. We believe that the restoration of full-format negotiations with the direct participation of the Artsakh Republic at all stages should be another step towards real progress in the process of the settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict," the NKR MFA statement reads.
On October 16, Sargsyan and Aliyev met. The meeting was attended by Armenian and Azeri FMs Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov, Minsk mediators Igor Popov (Russia), Andrew Scheffer (USA), Stefan Visconti (France) and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. The meeting was held in a constructive atmosphere. The presidents agreed to take additional measures to intensify the negotiation process and reduce tensions on the contact line. At the same time, the mediators expressed their commitment to continue working with the parties to the Karabakh conflict to find a peaceful way to resolve it. As a next step in this direction, the mediator called the organization of working meetings with the foreign ministers of the two countries.