Armenia’s Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan received today Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Popov, Andrew Schofer and Stéphane Visconti, who are in Armenia on a subsequent regional visit. Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk also participated in the meeting.

The purpose of the meeting was to exchange views on the current state of affairs on the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border and on the line of contact of the forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, as well as the developments that have unfolded.

Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan attached importance to the significance of the operative communication that the leaderships of Armenia and Azerbaijan established in October 2018. The minister drew the interlocutors’ attention to the large-scale military exercises that the armed forces of Azerbaijan held in May without informing the international community in advance and the ceasefire violations that have become more frequent recently. Tonoyan noted that in spite of these negative trends, Armenia continues to support unconditional maintenance of the ceasefire regime, the prevention of incidents and the implementation of measures aimed at reducing risks in order to rule out all types of provocations.

The defense minister added that the Armed Forces of Armenia and the Defense Army of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) are seriously following the situation and overseeing any movement of the adversary.