Statement On the Military Provocation of Azerbaijan on the Line of Contact between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan delivered by Ambassador Arman Kirakossian at the 1073rd Meeting of the OSCE

29 October, 2015

Mr. Chairman,

We took note of the statement of France on behalf of the Minsk Group co-Chair countries.

We would like to draw the attention of the Permanent Council to the recent military provocation of the Azerbaijani side on the Line of Contact between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

On October 27, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his team conducted a monitoring exercise on the north section of the Line of Contact with participation of the Minsk Group co-Chairs Ambassadors Igor Popov, James Warlick and Pierre Andrieu. The crossing of the Line of Contact by the co-Chairs from Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan had been scheduled as a part of monitoring. According to the press-release of the Ministry of Defence of Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of the monitoring when the Co-Chairs crossed the Line of Contact the Azerbaijani armed units violated the ceasefire regime, by opening gunfire and causing immediate threat to the persons participating in the monitoring, including Co-Chairs. It is noteworthy that representatives of the NK side present on the ground drew the attention of the field assistants in the charge of monitoring to this incident and asked their support in this regard.

Such provocations go hand in hand with the continuous efforts of the Azerbaijani side to reduce the OSCE presence in the region in general and the conflict zone in particular, which undermines the early warning capacity of the Organization and serves to facilitate gradual transition from ceasefire regime to the state of large-scale hostilities.

We resolutely condemn these actions. We agree with the assessment of the Co-Chairs that this incident represents a deliberate effort to undermine progress towards a settlement and it also underscores the need for the OSCE to have the ability to investigate violations of the ceasefire.

On a number of occasions we conveyed our agreement to introduce an investigative mechanism into ceasefire violations along with other confidence and security building measures, which is essential to consolidate and strengthen the ceasefire regime and identify the party responsible for each concrete incident.

We would like to reiterate one more time our position that to advance peace talks we need to consolidate the ceasefire regime, introduce CSBMs and put an end to military provocations, which lead to human casualties.

Thank you.

MFA RA
official website

Dual citizenship

Electronic visa

Visa applications