11:00, 23 January 2010

Monitoring of contact line of armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan stopped

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Nagorno-Karabakh tries to find out why the OSCE monitoring mission suspended its work in the Karabakh-Azerbaijan contact line.

The statement of the MFA of the non-recognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) runs that on January 22, according to the earlier agreement with the NPR's authorities, the OSCE mission started its scheduled monitoring in the Askeran direction. From the defence location of the Nagorno-Karabakh Army, the monitoring was held by field assistants to the personal representative of the current OSCE chairman Peter Kii (Great Britain), Vladimir Chuntulov (Bulgaria) and Zhaslan Nurtazin (Kazakhstan).

"From the opposite side the mission was headed by the coordinator of the OSCE office Lieutenant Colonel Imre Palatinus (Hungary), who ordered, at the very start of monitoring, to suspend observation and to cancel the monitoring as a whole. The reasons are now found out," the MFA's statement says.

In its turn, the Azerbaijani party reports that the monitoring did not take place for technical reasons.

Author: Alvard Grigoryan

Source: CK correspondent