On February 19, the annual press conference of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Masis Mayilian took place. Masis Mayilian briefed on the activities carried out by the Foreign Ministry during 2017.
Question: According to the statement by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairpersons following the January 18, 2018 meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Krakow, the Ministers expressed their agreement in principle with the revised conceptual document of the Co-Chairpersons on the expansion of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. How would you comment on this statement?
Answer: The Republic of Artsakh has always supported the initiatives aimed at strengthening the ceasefire regime, and has repeatedly made various proposals to reduce tensions on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan. In doing so, we always took into account that these steps should not be formal or declarative, but should make a real contribution to the stabilization of the situation on the Line of Contact. The same approach applies equally to the proposal on expanding the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, which should not be limited to a formal increase in the number of staff, but should provide for increased monitoring capabilities of the Office.
The implementation of this proposal will be an important step in the right direction. However, merely the expansion of the staff of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and its increased monitoring capabilities are not sufficient to ensure stability and predictability on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan. It is also necessary to implement other initiatives on strengthening the ceasefire, in particular, the proposal on mechanism of investigation incidents agreed upon in 2011. In this context, the practical application of the agreement of February 6, 1995, reached by Azerbaijan, Artsakh and Armenia under the aegis of the OSCE, is also of great importance. The agreement contains a whole complex of militarily significant measures on stabilization of crisis situations.
