YEREVAN, JANUARY 11, ARMENPRESS.  After the NK 2016 April violence the little bit of confidence that was there is now challenged, Günther Bächler – Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus said in an interview.

“It’s interesting that for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict we have some principles about final status on the table, but no real negotiation architecture”, he said.

“The recent meeting of the presidents of Armenia and of Azerbaijan in Geneva is of course important and to some extent encouraging”, he added, but stressed that only the bilateral meeting of the presidents will not automatically restore the negotiations process.

“The 2014 OSCE Swiss Chairmanship developed a non-paper on a structured negotiation process with all elements and details of a full-fledged negotiation process; we have presented it repeatedly to succeeding Chairmanships and all the people involved, and maybe one day they will use it. Also, last year, under the German OSCE Chairmanship, we spent quite some time, first of all to develop the idea of strengthening the monitoring mission of the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office on the Conflict Dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference. There was agreement between the presidents in St. Petersburg, but it has not yet been implemented. It is a very small mission monitoring the Line of Contact and state border of Armenia and Azerbaijan; we speak about an increase from six to thirteen international staff”, he said.

He stressed that in 2017 the Austrian chairmanship has developed this concept more and certain progress has been seen in this issue recently, therefore the prospects of implementation seem realistic for 2018.

“At the same time we also drafted a non-paper on a mechanism for investigating ceasefire violations, another confidence-building measure that has yet to be implemented”, he said.