The Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is set to organize more talks on the Karabakh conflict settlement this fall and a meeting of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan is possible, the organization’s Secretary General Lamberto Zannier said in Moscow on Monday.
Zannier was speaking at the meeting of the Permanent Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Moscow-led defense pact of which Armenia is a member.
According to RIA Novosti, Zannier said that he had discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha.
“We are concerned about the increase of violence in the region and at the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. We need to work with the political leadership,” the OSCE secretary-general said.
“We had meetings with the [Armenian and Azerbaijani] foreign ministers during the UN General Assembly in New York, meetings of the Minsk Group co-chairs. Such a meeting is possible in fall. We hope that perhaps a meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will take place,” he added.
Meanwhile, it also emerged on Monday that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs representing the United States, Russia and France plan to pay another visit to the region and hold negotiations with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev, by the end of October.
Ambassador James Warlick, the U.S. co-chair of the group, said, as quoted by Azerbaijani news agency APA, that the main subject of the talks will be an Armenian-Azerbaijani summit, while the venue and time of such a meeting, he said, depends on the decision of the two countries’ presidents.