Answering the question of Trend Special Correspondent regarding the forecasts for the peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said at the press-conference on December 20 in Moscow that in 2006, significant progresses were achieved in the process of the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.
Establishing forecasts is ungrateful. We are the co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group together with the USA and France, and the role of the co-chairs is to assist the conflict sides to reach an agreement, he said. According to him, the direct contacts between the Azerbaijan and Armenian Presidents, as well as Foreign Ministers, assume key importance. He said that the co-chairs assist in organizing these contacts and listen to what the leaders say, and prepare for the next negotiations, by devising proposals, which help the Leaders to move ahead.
Highlighting the progress in the negotiations process this year, Lavrov said that there is an understanding that the co-chairs play their role in the contacts between the Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In addition, he refused to establish forecasts regarding the date of the agreement, noting that the Heads of Azerbaijan and Armenia have a wish to find a way out from this complicated crisis. He said that OSCE Minsk Group supports all principles of the international law, but the main fact is to create maximal available conditions for the Heads of Azerbaijan and Armenia with regards to the stages and dates of the future negotiations.