Throughout 2011, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk continued to support the Chairperson and OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in their efforts to help negotiate Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. The Personal Representative and his team supported the Chairperson’s visit to the South Caucasus in March and seven visits by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to the region in February, March, April, June, July, October and November.

Conducting regular meetings with representatives of the sides, on highest military and political levels, he was able to keep the Chairperson and Minsk Group Co-Chairs informed of relevant developments. He supported the Co-Chairs in a series of meetings with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan and helped them prepare for a meeting of the presidents in March, hosted by the President of Russia, during which they agreed to complete the exchange of prisoners of war and to try to investigate possible incidents along the front lines, through the support of the Personal Representative. He also helped prepare for a meeting of the presidents in June, again hosted by the President of Russia.

With the support of the sides, the Personal Representative and his team conducted 23 monitoring exercises on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and Line of Contact (LOC). During these exercises, he led the Minsk Group Co-Chairs across the LOC in April and June, and across the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in November, enabling them to demonstrate that these should not become permanent barriers to contact between neighboring peoples. Representatives of the High-Level Planning Group were also able to take part in two monitoring exercises.

The Personal Representative also continued to co-operate throughout the year with representatives of international organizations. He took part in meetings of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament and briefed representatives of the OSCE, the participating States, the European Union, and civil society organizations with an interest in resolution of the conflict.