OSCE Minsk Group New French Co-Chair to Assume Duties in January: Source

The new French co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Jacques Faure will take up his duties in January, a diplomatic source in France told the Baku-based Trend news agency on Wednesday.

He will replace the current French co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Bernard Fassier, who will complete his mission by late 2011.

Fassier plans to pay his last visit to the region in late November.

Currently Faure is the French Ambassador to Ukraine.

The disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan after a bloody war in the 1990s and is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. Today it exists as a de-facto independent state under an uneasy ceasefire, and OSCE-brokered efforts to resolve its status have so far been unsuccessful.