Armenia, Azerbaijan Agree to Respect Ceasefire Agreement, Plan to Resume Peace Process

During a late Monday meeting in Vienna mediated by United States Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and France’s State Secretary for Europe Affairs Harlem Desir – representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries – Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “reiterated their commitment to the ceasefire and the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” according to a joint statement issued by Kerry, Lavrov and Desir after the talks.

The Co-Chairs, the statement says, reiterated at the meeting that there can be no military solution to the conflict. They insisted on the importance of respecting the 1994 and 1995 ceasefire agreements. 

“To reduce the risk of further violence, [Aliyev and Sargsyan] agreed to finalize in the shortest possible time an OSCE investigative mechanism. The Presidents also agreed to the expansion of the existing Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson in Office. Finally, they agreed to continue the exchange of data on missing persons under the auspices of the ICRC, to which the Presidents committed during the Paris summit of October 2014,” reads the statement.

Sargsyan and Aliyev, it concludes, have also agreed on a “next round of talks, to be held in June at a place to be mutually agreed, with an aim to resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement.”