At its meeting in Helsinki on 24 March 1992, the CSCE (now OSCE) Council requested the Chairman-in-Office to convene a conference on Nagorno-Karabakh under the auspices of the CSCE as soon as possible, to provide an ongoing forum for negotiations towards a peaceful settlement of the crisis on the basis of the principles, commitments and provisions of the CSCE.

It has so far not been possible to hold this conference, which is to take place in Minsk and would be attended by the members of the Minsk Group (see Overview).

On 6 December 1994, the Budapest Summit of Heads of State or Government decided to establish a co-chairmanship for the process. The Summit participants also expressed their political will to deploy multinational peacekeeping forces as an essential part of the overall settlement of the conflict.

On 23 March 1995, the Chairman-in-Office - implementing the Budapest decision - issued the mandate for the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Process.

Objectives

The main objectives of the Minsk Process, as set out in the above documents, can be summarized as follows:

• Providing an appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of assuring the negotiation process supported by the Minsk Group;
• Obtaining conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk Conference;
• Promoting the peace process by deploying OSCE multinational peacekeeping forces.

The Minsk Process can be considered to be successfully concluded if these objectives are fully met.