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Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs meet in Geneva for consultations on Nagorno-Karabakh

Russian Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Popov had arrived to the Swiss city for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh

GENEVA, October 8. /TASS/. Co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s Minsk Group convened in Geneva on Thursday evening to discuss ways of settling the current conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, informed sources told TASS.

"The consultations are still ongoing," the source said, providing no further details.

Earlier in the day, Russian Permanent Mission to the UN Office and other international organizations in Geneva told TASS that Russian Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Popov had arrived to the Swiss city for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh. However, no official information about the beginning and the course of the negotiations has so far been published. The agenda and venue of the talks are also unknown.

The co-chairs were supposed to meet with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, but the Azerbaijani mission to Geneva told TASS it had no information to share at this point.

French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian announced on Wednesday that the Minsk group co-chair nations (France, Russia and the United States) will hold negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh on October 8 in Geneva and on October 12 in Moscow. He did not disclose at what level the negotiations will take place.

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July. Azerbaijan and Armenia have imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict have reported casualties, among them civilians.

The conflict between 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 primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.

On October 1, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia, Donald Trump of the United States and Emmanuel Macron of France, as the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair nations issued a statement on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. The leaders resolutely condemned the current escalation along the contact line in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and called for immediate cessation of hostilities.

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