Foreign Minister of Armenia informs EU representative of Azerbaijan’s actions

Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian received EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Herbert Salber on February 9.

As the foreign ministry’s press-office told EAD, the minister drew the attention of the EU representative to “the drastic increase in subversive actions by the Azerbaijani armed forces on the Line of Contact with Artsakh (Karabakh – editor’s note) and on the border with Armenia.”

“At the end of last week, at the Munich Security Conference, Azerbaijani President refused to affirm his commitment to the three principles of the International Law suggested by the mediators as a basis for the conflict resolution. This, along with the approaches he expressed, prove Azerbaijan’s contempt towards the international community’s appeals and continuation of its maximalist line,” Minister Nalbandian underlined.

The foreign minister of Armenia said Azerbaijan continuously rejects the OSCE Minsk Group- proposed confidence-building measures, i.e. the cease-fire consolidation, withdrawal of snipers, mechanism of investigation into incidents. Furthermore, Nalbandian said, by its destructive stance Azerbaijan undermines the negotiation process.

EU Special Representative, in turn, reaffirmed his support to the OSCE Minsk Group co-Chairs’ efforts towards peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The situation on the Line of Contact of the Azerbaijani and Karabakh troops and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border has escalated since the beginning of the year. The sides blame each other of the ceasefire violations and casualties.

The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic and the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of America, and Pierre Andrieu of France) have come out with a joint statement on the Karabakh lately. In particular, they said that the military situation along the Line of Contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan border is deteriorating, “posing a threat to regional stability and endangering the lives of civilians.” “We strongly urge the sides to find the political will to begin this process [of intensive negotiations] immediately without excuses,” they said in the statement.