April 13, 2011 - 13:09 AMT
OSCE MG crosses demined section of contact line between NKR, Azerbaijani armed forces

On April 13, according to the agreement with the authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the OSCE Mission held monitoring of the Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forces' contact line on Akna-Barda road, Askeran direction.

From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring group was led by Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. Co-Chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group on the Karabakh conflict settlement Igor Popov (Russia), Robert Bradtke (USA), and Bernard Fassier (France) participated in the monitoring. They crossed the contact line in a section, which had been demined beforehand, with the aim of supporting Ambassador Kasprzyk in fair investigation of the incident that took in this section on March 8, 2011. The monitoring group comprised Coordinator of the OSCE Office, Lieutenant-Colonel Imre Palatinus (Hungary) and Field Assistant of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Marius Puodziunas (Lithuania).

From the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring was held by Field assistants of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Hristo Hristov (Bulgaria), Antal Herdic (Hungary) and William Pryor (Great Britain).

The monitoring passed in accordance with the agreed schedule, and no violation of the ceasefire was recorded.

From the Karabakh side, the monitoring mission was accompanied by representatives of the NKR Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense.