OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs say peaceful resolution to conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is 'imperative and achievable'

BUCHAREST, 6 June 2006 - The three Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, which deals with the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, have issued a statement following their June 4 meeting in Bucharest with the presidents and foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Their statement reads:

"In Bucharest on June 4, 2006, the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov (Russian Federation), Ambassador Steven Mann (USA), and Ambassador Bernard Fassier (France), and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman in Office (PRCIO), Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, assembled at the Embassy of Poland and met with Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, together with their Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mammadyarov. This meeting followed the late May joint visit to Baku and Yerevan at the Deputy Minister level of the Co-Chair countries, in which these representatives urged the sides to intensify their dialogue to achieve an agreement on the basic principles of the settlement. The Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Minister Karel de Gucht, welcomed the Presidents and delivered opening remarks. The discussion covered the full range of issues relating to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. On June 5, the Co-Chairs, the PRCIO and the Presidents, with their Foreign Ministers, conducted a second meeting.

The Co-Chairs remain of the opinion that a peaceful resolution of the issues is both imperative and achievable, and that 2006 remains the favorable window to achieve such progress. The Co-Chairs continue to believe that the basic principles they have identified and proposed to the parties for settlement of the conflict offer an equitable basis for such a resolution. They regret that the parties have not yet come to agreement on these principles.

The Co-Chairs expressed their intention to report to the Permanent Council of the OSCE later in June on their activity in the previous months."