MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. Consultations on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict continue, despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakarova said on Friday.
"Despite the coronavirus, work on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement continues," she said, adding that settlement problems were in focus of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s telephone talks with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, Zograb Mtatsakanyan and Elmar Mamedyarov, in April.
"Co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk maintains regular contacts with the parties," she noted. "The ongoing series of consultations is focused on the topic of the coronavirus infection, its impacts on the negotiating process, and certain aspects of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. The agenda also includes the situation along the contact line and at the borders."
The conflict between neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up but was mainly populated by Armenians, broke out in the early 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic.
In 1991-1994, the confrontation spilled over into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and some adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them.
Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been held since 1992 in the format of the so-called OSCE Minsk Group, comprising along with its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States - Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey.