BAKU, June 22. /TASS/. No incidents occurred during the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) regular monitoring on the contact line in the Karabakh conflict zone, the press service of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.
"The monitoring on the contact line of the sides’ troops near the Agdam village of the Tovuz district of Azerbaijan conducted on June 22 in accordance with the mandate of the personal representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office passed without incidents," the ministry said. The monitoring of the observance of the ceasefire regime by the conflict sides was carried out by the field assistants of the personal representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office.
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The situation along the line of engagement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone deteriorated dramatically overnight to April 2 when fierce clashes began. The parties to the conflict accused each other of violating the truce.
On April 5, Azerbaijan’s Chief of Staff Nadjmeddin Sadykov and his Armenian counterpart Yuri Khachaturov met in Moscow with Russia’s mediation. At the talks the sides came to an agreement on cessation of hostilities at the line of engagement between the Azerbaijani and Armenian forces. On the same day, the two countries’ defense ministries announced that the ceasefire regime in Nagorno-Karabakh would start at 12am local time. Since then, the parties to the conflict have been accusing each other of violating the ceasefire agreement.
On May 16, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Vienna. Serzh Sargsyan and Ilkham Aliyev agreed to "make steps to monitor observance of agreements on ceasefire and introduce a mechanism on investigating incidents." The participants in the Vienna talks on Nagorno-Karabakh on May 16 that also involved the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, with mediation of the foreign ministers of the countries co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, the United States, France) reach an agreement on observing the ceasefire in the region in the format of the 1994-1995 agreements. In addition, the conflict sides agreed to complete as soon as possible the work on the OSCE mechanism for investigating incidents at the line of engagement of the conflict sides.
On June 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts Serzh Sargsyan and Ilkham Aliyev adopted a trilateral statement where they expressed commitment to the normalization the situation along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh.
According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the presidents also "expressed consent to an increase in the number of OSCE monitors in the area of the conflict and voice the commitment to creating conditions for steady progress at negotiations on a political settlement of the conflict."
"The sides exchanged views on the substantive aspects of the settlement. The heads of state stated that they reached mutual understanding on a number of issues the settlement of which will make it possible to create conditions for progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement," the statement says.