Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement are going to visit the region this spring, first deputy to Russian foreign minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov told ITAR-TASS. Before that, in his words, the mediators "intend to arrange preliminary contacts between Baku and Yerevan for determining the issues to be proposed during the negotiations". In addition to the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents' meetings, which are extremely important but are not sufficient for discussing the settlement because of the irregularity and short run, the co-chairs will try to organize "the second-level" negotiations between the two countries, which are expected to be more regular and detailed, the diplomat said. At the same time he refuted the statements about the passivity of the Minsk Group co-chairs. In his words, they are "still going to carry out their impartial and benevolent work of mediators". V. Trubnikov reminded that "existing for over 10 years the Minsk Group proposed several variants of the settlement, all these however have been rejected either by Armenia or by Azerbaijan". As a matter of fact, he said, "all the variants proposed for settlement were on the agenda of the negotiations". The diplomat expressed regret over the fact that "each party ignoring the other's position is guided by its own interests only".