Foreign ministers to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Helsinki

by Tatul Hakobyan

Published: Wednesday December 03, 2008

Göran Lennmarker, PACE rapporteur on Nagorno-Karabakh, with Armenia's Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian in Helsinki, Dec. 3, 2008. Tigran Balayan

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Helsinki, Finland - (Dec. 3) -- The Armenian Reporter's Tatul Hakobyan reports from Helsinki that U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, representing the three nations that co-chair the OSCE Minsk Group mediating in the final resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, will meet on Thursday, December 4, with Foreign Ministers Edward Nalbandian of Armenia and Elmar Mammadyarov of Azerbaijan. The senior diplomats are in Helsinki for the meetings of the OSCE Ministerial Council.

A similar meeting took place at the OSCE Ministerial meeting in Madrid, where the top diplomats of the co-chair countries put forth proposals now known as the Madrid Principles to the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nalbandian and Mr. Mamedyarov are scheduled to hold talks today.

On December 3, Mr. Nalbandian met with Göran Lennmarker, PACE rapporteur on Nagorno-Karabakh, and discussed the latest developments in the negotiations.

Mr. Nalbandian said he attached great importance to the declaration signed on November 2 near Moscow by Presidents Serge Sargsian, Ilham Aliyev, and Dmitri Medvedev. Presumably alluding to Mr. Aliyev's statement to Italian television last week that the declaration does not preclude the use of military force by Azerbaijan, Mr. Nalbandian said the document is being misinterpreted in Azerbaijan. Misinterpreting and attempting to ignore the principles agreed to will harm the effectiveness and progress of the negotiating process, Mr. Nalbandian added.

Mr. Nalbandian also met on December 3 with OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut. They discussed reforms within the OSCE. The Armenian foreign minister said Yerevan attached importance to the role of the OSCE in maintaining security and cooperation in Europe. "The European security system needs to be perfected, and the member-states must work together to make it more active and effective," he said.

The two also discussed the work of the OSCE office in Yerevan.