“The Karabakh conflict is the exclusive responsibility of the OSCE and other organizations can cooperate with OSCE efforts, but this is an actual conflict that our organization is and is obliged to handle. Here there is 100-percent responsibility for what is going on in the conflict zone to both the party concerned and of course the OSCE,” Lukashevich said during a live video linkup.
Earlier on Friday, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Secretary General Lamberto Zannier stated that the organization is ready to hold a special session on Nagorno-Karabakh if the situation deteriorates further. Zennier also mentioned plans of discussing the situation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in late April.
Lukashevich also said that the deployment of peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh can only be done once a political settlement has been reached in the region.
“The development of a peacekeeping operation, which could naturally be possible only after reaching a political settlement to keep peace in the region, has more or less already been worked out long ago,” Lukashevich said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 1988, when the autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. The region proclaimed independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
The fighting in the region intensified on April 2, leading to multiple casualties before Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a shaky ceasefire deal three days later that has since been regularly violated.
