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At a meeting with the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Foreign Minister Mammadyarov said that Azerbaijan already had a strategic relationship with a number of EU countries and hoped this could be established with the EU itself also.

The Swiss Chairmanship of the OSCE in 2014 was marked by challenges to European security unprecedented since the creation of the organisation. Switzerland probably saved the OSCE from collapse. Its successors now need to ensure its future.

Unconfirmed reports say that the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are likely to meet on the margins of the meeting, under the auspices of the Minsk Group.

President Putin starts visit to Turkey on Monday with economic relations high on the agenda. The two countries however have significant differences on regional issues.

Arseniy Yatseniuk has been re-elected Prime Minister with two-thirds majority, giving him a clear mandate to pursue much needed reforms.

Efforts continue to try to stop an escalation of the violence as the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan prepare to meet in Switzerland next week.

Russia will today sign a treaty with its protectorate in the Caucasus, the Republic of Abkhazia. Annexation, integration, or simply friendship?

The visit came amid increasing concerns about the fate of Christian minorities in the Levant and the Middle East.

The bodies of the three Armenian servicemen killed in the downing of a helicopter in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone earlier this month have been retrieved according to sources close to the Ministry of Defence of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The sources said that this was done during a special operation near the crash site in the no man's land between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. Gun fire was exchanged during the operation. It is not known if there were any casualties on either side. (source: commonspace.eu with agencies). A spokesman for the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence has denied that there has been any Armenian special operation near the helicopter crash site and has described the story as a provocation. (commonspace.eu with agencies).