Defense minister Vigen Sargsyan on Saturday, June 10 met the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to discuss the situation along the contact line between Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) and Azerbaijan and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Meeting the minister in Armenia were ambassadors Igor Popov of Russia, Stephane Visconti of France, and Richard Hoagland of the United States, as well as Personal Representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.

Sargsyan hailed the ambassadors’ recent targeted assessment of Azerbaijan’s sabotages and ceasefire violations.

Citing the need for the implementation of agreements reached in Vienna and St Petersbourg, the defense minister stressed the importance of introducing mechanisms of investigating border incidents and thus creating an atmosphere of trust.

The co-chairs in a statement released on May 18 gave an assessment of the current situation on the Karabakh line of contact, addressed to Azerbaijan.

The ambassadors cited "information collected from multiple reliable sources" which proved that Azerbaijan initiated the latest escalation on the contact line.