OSCE Offers to Create Investigation Group for Skirmishing Armenians, Azeris

The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh proposed the establishment of an investigation group, OSCE said in a statement Friday.

VIENNA (Sputnik) — The Co-Chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh proposed the establishment of a group for the investigation of incidents, OSCE said in a statement Friday.

The proposal was made during OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian.

"The Co-Chairs delivered to the Ministers for the consideration of the sides draft documents on expanding the existing office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and establishing an OSCE investigative mechanism," the statement read.

The ministers in turn confirmed the presidents’ agreement to hold the next round of talks in June with an aim to resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988, when the autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, before the latter proclaimed independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The warring sides agreed to a cessation of hostilities in 1994.

The violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway region with a predominantly Armenian population, escalated on April 2. Baku and Yerevan have accused each other of provoking hostilities that led to multiple deaths on both sides.