On 6 December in Vilnius, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Azubalis received the Co-Chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group from the United States, France and Russia and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office (CiO) on Karabakh Conflict Andrzej Kasprzyk to discuss the situation in the South Caucasus and in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassador Robert Bradtke of the United States, Bernard Fassier of France, and Igor Popov of Russia, were issued a mandate to spearhead the negotiations towards a settlement of this conflict. The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on the Conflict assists the CiO in achieving an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict and assists the conflicting parties in implementing and developing confidence-building.
At the meeting, the Foreign Minister expressed his intentions to pay special attention to conflict prevention and resolution during Lithuania’s OSCE chairmanship. The Minister emphasized the need to strengthen the role of the OSCE Secretariat, institutions and missions in the entire conflict resolution cycle. During the conversation, the parties discussed the process of the ongoing negotiations on Karabakh conflict settlement and possible efforts to bring the process to a fruitful conclusion in the near future. The participants of the meeting also discussed the impact that the results of the OSCE Summit of Heads of State or Government on 1-2 December in Astana may have on the resolution of protracted conflicts.
The participants exchanged ideas on the implementation of mutual confidence-building measures that could aid the Armenian and Azerbaijani societies, and discussed future cooperation between Lithuania’s incoming OSCE chairmanship in 2011 in and the Minsk Group, Lithuania Foreign Ministry Official Website reported.
