Armenia confirms planned meeting between Armenian and Azeri foreign minister

YEREVAN, June 5. /ARKA/. Tigran Balayan, a spokesman for Armenian foreign ministry has confirmed today to ARKA that Armenian and Azeri foreign ministers Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mamedyarov will have a meeting on June 18.

Earlier, Azerbaijani media quoted Mammadyarov as saying that that his meeting with Nalbandian was scheduled for June 18 in Paris at the suggestion of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Three Armenian servicemen were killed early Monday morning and six wounded in an attack by Azeri forces on a military post near Chinari village, in Armenian Tavush province, according to Armenian defense ministry. It said while repelling the attack Armenians killed five Azeri troops. 

Nagorno-Karabakh, populated overwhelmingly by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan following a three-year war that left some 30,000 dead. A Russia-brokered ceasefire ended the hostilities in 1994, but peace has remained fragile since then. The current Minsk Group-mediated negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan have not brought a peace agreement yet. The latest peace plan of the international mediators calls for the Armenian withdrawal from some of the territories held by the Karabakh military, the return of displaced people, security guarantees for Karabakh and its Armenian population and the possibility of a future referendum to decide the area’s final legal status.-0-