Statement in response to the Statement of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office

24 October, 2013

Statement

in response to the Statement of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office delivered by Ambassador Arman Kirakossian at the 968th Meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council

October 24, 2013

Mr. Chairman,

We would like to thank the distinguished French Ambassador for bringing forward the Statement of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office.

We would like to refer here to the Press-Release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, according to which the monitoring exercise was abandoned due to the submachine gun shots from the Azerbaijani side towards the positions of the NK Defense Army.

We firmly believe in the credibility of this assessment, especially in the light of another deplorable incident, which took place on October 22 near the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border in the Tavush Region. The Azerbajiani units opened fire on the vehicles of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia at the Berd-Idjevan highway, which resulted in death of private Garik Poghosian and wounding of three other soldiers. All of them are conscripts at the age of 19, who were being transported to their military unit.

The Delegation of Armenia condemns these incidents in most resolute terms. On many occasions the Armenian side has stated that refusal of Azerbaijan to implement the March 5, 2011 Sochi Summit agreement on the establishment of investigative mechanism into ceasefire violations and its continuous attempts to keep the ceasefire fragile will only generate more losses of innocent lives. Having said this, we would like to state that in such conditions of total disregard and non-compliance of Azerbaijan with its commitments the responsibility for the casualties lays with the Azerbaijani side.

The Armenian side offers its full support to Ambassador Kasprzyk and his team and reiterates its readiness to work closely with all parties to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict to consolidate the ceasefire in conformity with the proposals of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-Office.

Refusal to establish investigative mechanism into ceasefire violations, refusal to withdraw the snipers from the Line of Contact, war mongering, anti-Armenian rhetoric and provocative actions are postponing peaceful settlement so needed for the sides of the conflict. And it is happening in time when the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group are working to arrange high level meetings to continue talks on the peaceful settlement.

Thank You.

MFA RA
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