BAKU. Dec 10 (Interfax) - The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and the Azeri and Armenian foreign ministers failed to agree upon a joint statement on Nagorno-Karabakh because of Yerevan's unconstructive position, Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists following a meeting with the mediators in the efforts to settle the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs took place on the sidelines of the 19th annual meeting of the OSCE foreign ministers in Dublin.
"Unfortunately, because of unconstructive position assumed by Yerevan, which has already developed a habit of retracting agreements achieved earlier, we failed to agree upon the text of a joint statement of the co-chairs and the foreign ministers," Mammadyarov said.
He also regretted that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs "did not display enough insistence on this issue."
The essence of the problem is the presence of Armenian armed forces on Azeri territory, which "seriously hampers the settlement of the conflict," Mammadyarov said.
"Even the beginning of the withdrawal of these troops from the occupied Azeri territories would provide preconditions for beginning the conflict settlement process," he said.