STOCKHOLM, March 14. /TASS/. Swedish Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ann Linde will visit Azerbaijan on March 15, the Swedish foreign ministry said on Sunday.
According to the ministry, Linde will meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Prime Minister Ali Asadov to discuss the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and the OSCE’s role in the conflict settlement process.
The sides are also expected to discuss issues of cooperation between the OSCE and Azerbaijan. The Swedish top diplomat will also meet with representatives of civil society.
Apart from that, Linde will also visit Armenia on March 15-16.
"Travelling to Azerbaijan and Armenia in my role as OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is high on the agenda on this important trip. The OSCE has a role to play in finding sustainable solutions to the challenges in the region," she wrote on her Twitter account.
Situation in Nagorno-Karabakh
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.
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.
On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. Under the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachinsky corridor that connects Armenia with the enclave to exercise control of the ceasefire observance.