ArmInfo.On the sidelines of the 23rd Ministerial Council of the OSCE member-states on December 8 Edward Nalbandian, Foreign Minister of Armenia, had a meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov, James Warlick, Stephane Visconti.
Andrzej Kasprzyk, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, also attended the meeting, the press-service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry informs.
"During the meeting, the sides discussed a number of issues related to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. In this regard, Edward Nalbandian emphasized that for months Azerbaijan has been refusing to implement the agreements reached on the level of Presidents at the Vienna and St. Petersburg summits, thus hindering the creation of conducive conditions for the advancement of the negotiation process", the statement of the ministry reads.
To recall, the Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia met in Saint Petersburg on June 20 2016 at the behest of Vladimir Putin. Reaching a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was the subject of discussion at the meeting, which took place behind closed doors. Following the consultations, the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan adopted a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to normalizing the situation on the line of contact and giving their approval to an increase in the number of OSCE observers working in the conflict zone. The joint statement also expresses the parties' commitment to putting in place the conditions required for steady progress in negotiations on a political settlement to the conflict. The presidents made a point of their regular contacts on Karabakh and agree to continue them in such format as addition to the efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs who were invited to the final stage of the meeting in St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that the investigative mechanisms at the present stage of the settlement are irrelevant and the issue can be discussed after "withdrawal of Armenian troops from the NKR". He also stressed that the Office of the OSCE CiO Personal Representative can be expanded by no more than 12-13 people. Following the meetings in Vienna and St. Petersburg, France expressed willingness to host the next meeting on Karabakh in August 2016, but no meeting was organized.