Azerbaijan

On the eve of OSCE Ministerial Council in Madrid on November 29, 2007, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and France's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner met with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The purpose of meeting with Elmar Mamedyarov and Vardan Oskanian was demonstrating of support at the political level to the parties of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by countries chairing in the OSCE Minsk Group for achieving fair and long-term solution. During the meeting, representatives of the U.S., France and Russia, had submitted some of the Basic Principles on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to foreign ministers for delivery to presidents of Azerbaijani and Armenian. It was noted that for the last three years, significant progress has been made in the talks mediated by co-chairing countries, however, a number of contradictions remain. Those basic principles submitted to representatives of the parties on behalf of the co-chairing countries today, reflect the simple and constructive solutions to these disagreements. The parties to the conflict were called to complete the current phase of the negotiations, and to begin the work as soon as possible on a principal peace agreement.