Preparations underway for summit on Nagorno-Karabakh in St. Petersburg

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin and French Ambassador to Moscow Jean-Maurice Ripert have discussed preparations for the trilateral summit on Nagorno-Karabakh in St. Petersburg, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.


The meeting was held on the request of the French ambassador who was accompanied by co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group Pierre Andrieu.


"During the meeting, the sides discussed issues connected with international efforts on resolving the crisis in Ukraine, as well as preparations for the trilateral summit on Nagorno-Karabakh settlement in St. Petersburg. They also touched upon the situation in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia," the foreign ministry said.


The ministry did no clarify the concrete date of the summit.


On April 2, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh rapidly deteriorated when the parties to the Karabakh conflict accused each other of violating truce along the front line. The claims came from defense authorities of Armenia and of Azerbaijan.


On April 5 Azerbaijan's Chief of Staff Col. Gen. Nadjmeddin Sadykov and his Armenian counterpart Col. Gen. Yury Khachaturov in Moscow with Russia's mediation. At the talks the sides reached an agreement on cessation of hostilities at the contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces. On the same day, the defense ministries of the two countries announced that the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh would start at 12am local time.


Though the ceasefire mostly holds, both sides continue to report occasional violations of ceasefire on the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh.


On May 16 the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Vienna. Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev agreed to "make steps to monitor observance of agreements on ceasefire and introduce a mechanism on investigating incidents." They also agreed to "possible resume the negotiations process on settling the conflict," the press service of the Armenian president said. 

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