MOSCOW. Feb 19 (Interfax) - OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia Miroslav Lajcak has announced that he will visit Yerevan and Baku in March to discuss issues concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process.
"I am going to visit Baku and Yerevan in the first half of March to discuss these issues [Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement]. I have invitations from Armenia and Azerbaijan," Lajcak said at a press briefing after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday.
Slovakia "fully supports the co-chairs of the Minsk Group", which spearheads the OSCE's efforts to resolve the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, he said.
After the elections, a new situation has emerged in Armenia, Lajcak said.
"There is a government that has received a very powerful mandate, and it is linked to a number of expectations," he said.
"Our objective is to help the Minsk process co-chairs take advantage of this new situation," he said.
Lavrov, in turn, said that the Minsk Group's Russian, French and U.S. co-chairs have been working in close contact with the OSCE.
"They have already met with the leaders and the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. New contacts are being prepared. Given that Armenia's new government has just recently been formed, additional time will certainly be needed to understand how intensively and deeply we can pursue the settlement process at this stage," Lavrov said.
The Minsk Group co-chairs and the OSCE "can only help create conditions for dialogue, while decisions should certainly be adopted in direct conversation, during direct talks between the sides," he said.