YEREVAN (Combined Sources)–A senior official from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is set to visit Armenia and Azerbaijan early February, reported Armenpress.
Goran Lenmarker, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s special rapporteur to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will visit the region on February 9, ahead of a winter session of the Assembly slated for late February. Lenmarker is expected to brief the Assembly on his visit and the current progress of negotiations for a settlement to the longstanding conflict, Ann-Sofi Lindenbaum, an Advisor from the Swedish Parliament working on the OSCE PA’s International Secretariat told Armenpress Thursday.
The visit will come shortly after international mediators from the OSCE’s Minsk Group will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan in late January to try and nudge their leaders closer to a long-awaited agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani media reported on Wednesday.
Lenmarker, the OSCE PA’s Special Envoy to Georgia, was last in the region in early September meeting with leading officials from the region’s three countries, following the outbreak of fighting between Russian and Georgian forces in August.
The mediators hope presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev will iron out their remaining differences on the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement put forward by the Minsk Group troika. Aliyev and Sarkisian pledged to intensify the peace process after their last talks hosted by Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev in early November.
Aliyev highlighted lingering Armenian-Azerbaijani disagreemen’s on the proposed principles last week when he again stated that he will not accept any peace accord that stops short of restoring Azerbaijani control over Karabakh. He also told Azerbaijanis to be ready to win back the territory by force “at any moment.”
