29 March 2010, 23:00
OSCE: 19 persons perished in Karabakh conflict zone in 2009
As reported by Andrzej Kasprzyk, personal representative of the acting OSCE Chairman, in 2009, 19 persons perished in the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops.
"Unfortunately, outbreaks of occasional skirmishes in the above contact line and on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border every year about 30 persons are lost, local civilians among them. In 2009, the death toll went down to 19 persons, which may be due to intensification of peace talks," said Mr Kasprzyk.
The representative of the OSCE Chairman has emphasized that "every human loss is a tragedy, which should be avoided." "Unfortunately, the agreement to withdraw snipers was not reached," he has noted and added that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot be watched as frozen.
"From last year on, we see the most intensive phase during the whole negotiation process. In 2009, Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia met 6 times; 3 times in expanded format with President of Russia. And another time - with Dmitri Medvedev - in 2010," said Andrzej Kasprzyk in his interview to the OSCE magazine, published on March 26.
When asked whether the negotiation process should be made more transparent, Andrzej Kasprzyk answered that it would be nice when the final results of negotiations were presented to the population of the two countries for ratification, as the "Trend" reports.
