Foreign

Foreign

OSCE Chairman-in-Office: â€œMy proposal to Azerbaijan and Armenia to pull out snipers from the contact line between the troops was refusedâ€

30 March 2011 09:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. â€œWe see certain positive progress toward the reforms and democracy in the South Caucasus countries, but flash points of tensions and conflicts delay these processesâ€, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Latvian Foreign Minister Audronius AÅ¾ubalis said in his interview to DELFI news agency, APA reports. The OSCE Chairman-in-Office said his visit to the region was useful in terms of collecting necessary information and evaluating opportunities in the South Caucasus to move the conflict settlements forward.

â€œRegarding the Nagorno Karabakh problem, I was sure that a certain background was created for the conflict settlement progress after the presidentsâ€™ meeting in Sochi. The Minsk Group co-chairs are working despite criticism about them. The co-chairs are criticized because critics are unaware of their activityâ€.

AÅ¾ubalis noted that the Russian presidentâ€™s mediatory mission in the settlement of this conflict creates serious basis for the progress. â€œBut the Minsk Group will not solve the problems of the sides. The Minsk Group can propose any plan, but no one can move the settlement process forward, if there is no political will from the sidesâ€.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office also made comments on the sidesâ€™ reaction to his proposal to pull out the snipers from the contact line between the troops: â€œI proposed to Armenia to pull out its snipers from the contact line, but both sides refused my proposal. The sides reached an agreement in Sochi to start consultations on mechanisms of investigation of the incidents in the contact line. This is positive case. Following the tragic events (killing of 9-year-old Azerbaijani child Fariz Badalov by the Armenian sniper), I sent my personal representative to the region to investigate this incident.