Armenian, Russian, Azerbaijani Presidents to meet in Sochi Jan. 25

PanARMENIAN.Net - A trilateral meeting between Armenian, Russian and Azerbaijani leaders will take place in Sochi on January 25.



The OSCЕ Minsk Group Co-Chairs have arrived in the region to arrange the meeting between Presidents Serzh Sargsyan, Dmitry Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev, an informed source told PanARMENIAN.Net



The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, now Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)) to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.



On 6 December 1994, the Budapest Summit decided to establish a co-chairmanship for the process.



Implementing the Budapest decision, the Chairman-in-Office issued on 23 March 1995, the mandate for the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Process.



The main objectives of the Minsk Process are as follows: Providing an appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of assuring the negotiation process supported by the Minsk Group; Obtaining conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk Conference; Promoting the peace process by deploying OSCE multinational peacekeeping forces.



The Minsk Process can be considered to be successfully concluded if the objectives referred to above are fully met.



The Minsk Group is headed by a Co-Chairmanship consisting of France, Russia and the United States. Furthermore, the Minsk Group also includes the following participating States: Belarus, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Turkey as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan. Current Co-chairmen of the Minsk Group are: Ambassador Bernard Fassier of France, Ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov of the Russian Federation and Ambassador Robert Bradtke of the United States.



The Nagorno Karabakh conflict broke out in 1988 as result of the ethnic cleansing launched by Azerbaijan in the final years of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from 1991 to 1994. Since the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several regions of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the control of Nagorno Karabakh defense army. 



The Madrid principles contain the proposals put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs on the basic principles of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. The document was presented to the Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives at the OSCE summit in the Spanish capital in November 2007.