Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group
Moscow/16.11.17/Turan: The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France, and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) met separately on 14 and 16 November with the Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian and the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov. The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Andrzej Kasprzyk, also participated in the meetings, reads a statement of the OSCE MG.
The Co-Chairs discussed with the Foreign Ministers concrete steps to implement the agreements reached by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan during the Geneva summit on 16 October 2017 as well as other items raised by the Co-Chairs in Geneva. During the meetings, the Co-Chairs and the Ministers reviewed a number of working proposals currently on the table.
The Ministers agreed to hold a joint meeting on the margins of the December 2017 OSCE Ministerial Council in Vienna. The Co-Chairs will prepare the agenda for this meeting, which will include substantive issues of the political settlement, as well as specific measures to reduce tensions on the Line of Contact. Special attention will be paid to finalizing the expansion of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson in Office. -02D-
Politics
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will hold talks in Moscow on January 17 and make statements for the press, according to the Kremlin's press service.
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On January 13, the trial in the case of public activist Nijat Ibrahim continued in the Baku Serious Crimes Court under the chairmanship of Judge Aygun Gurbanova. The trial was suspended after Ibrahim, in protest against the illegal arrest, began banging his head against the "aquarium cage", trying to commit suicide. At the beginning of the trial, he stated that he had been illegally detained for 4 months, and because of this, his family in Moldova was in a difficult situation, Turan announced this on its Twitter.
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The International Committee of Concerned Scholars (ICS) has appealed to the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, requesting his assistance in securing the release of the arrested researcher, Igbal Abilov. The ICS expressed concern that Abilov's arrest "may be related to his research on ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan, conducted in collaboration with scholars from Armenia."
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Georgia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maka Botchorishvili, met with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Georgia, Faig Guliyev.
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