Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said on Friday that Armenia will not avoid further peace talks with Azerbaijan despite continuing ceasefire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh that left an Armenian soldier dead.
The 19-year-old soldier, Tigran Khachatrian, was reportedly killed by Azerbaijani sniper fire on Thursday just three days after the latest meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents held in Geneva.
Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev pledged to intensify the peace process and bolster the ceasefire regime in the Karabakh conflict zone. “We agreed to take measures to further ease tensions so that we have no casualties on the frontlines,” the Armenian president said after the talks.
The U.S., Russian and French mediators said in that regard that they will soon hold follow-up “working sessions” with Nalbandian and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.
Reacting to the Armenian soldier’s death later on Thursday, Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) accused Baku of “trying to walk away” from the Geneva understandings. Nalbandian also deplored the Azerbaijani truce violation when he spoke after talks in Yerevan with Poland’s Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski.
“Unfortunately, after the summit held in Geneva there have been various speculations by Baku, and ceasefire violations in the conflict zone are continuing, as a result of which an [Armenian] soldier was killed yesterday,” Nalbandian told a joint news briefing.
“My Polish counterpart and I agree that there is no alternative to a solely peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict based on principles of international law,” he added.
Nalbandian did not say when he and Mammadyarov will hold the planned meetings with the three mediators leading the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
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