Azerbaijan and Armenia have made progress in resolving a long-standing dispute over Nagorno Karabakh and the OSCE hopes for a regional declaration on the issue at its annual meetings later this week, its chairman said on Tuesday.

"Things are looking quite good on Nagorno Karabakh," said Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who is leading the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe under the Finnish chairmanship.

"I think that we are moving away from a frozen conflict towards a permanent solution, but of course we are not there yet, and it is very important that the Minsk Group works on this," Stubb said.

The Minsk Group - co-chaired by Russia, the United States and France - was established by the OSCE in 1992 to bring about a peaceful resolution in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where a Russian-brokered ceasefire has held since 1994.

Stubb said talks among the 50 foreign ministers in Helsinki on Dec. 4-5 for the annual meeting of Europe's main security and human rights body will be dominated by Caucasus disputes, including Nagorno Karabakh, along with the broader question of European security, Reuters reports.