The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will travel to Paris at the end of the month for another meeting with the representatives of the three co-Chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group - France, Russia and the United States. This will be the latest effort to break the impasse in the negotiations between the two countries for a solution to the problem over Nagorno-Karabakh. The meeting is scheduled for 28 January according to some sources.
It is not confirmed if the two foreign ministers will actually meet each other. They will initially have separate meetings with the the three co-Chair, after which if there is a basis for a face to face meeting it will also happen. Such a meeting is the basic minimum that is required for the talks to restart.
Robert Bradtke resigned as the American co-Chair of the Minsk Process before the Christmas holidays. A temporary replacement was announced, but it is not clear yet who will represent the United States in the talks.
Commonspace.eu political editor said in a comment:
"A meeting between the two Foreign Ministers would a few years ago have been looked at with considerable interest as part of a positive process of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the long drawn out conflict on Nagorno-Karabakh. In the last year however these meetings have become occasions for the sides to reiterate long stated positions and express intransigence. However even such a meeting proved impossible at the end of last year during the OSCE Ministerial Meeting in Dublin, so the mediators are trying very hard to keep the channels of communication open, and to arrange a face to face meeting between the Foreign Ministers. This is very necessary. It will not provide however the breakthrough that is needed. For that we will have to wait for the spring, and for a possible meeting between the two Presidents, and it will be interesting to see if any of the three co-Chair countries will assume the responsibility to host it.
source: commonspace.eu
