Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk held separate and joint meetings with the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Zohrab Mnatskanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov, the mediators of the OSCE Minsk Group said in a statement.

Co-chairs at the meetings were joined by the personal representative of the OSCE Chair-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. They also met with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, and senior United Nations officials.

The co-chairs informed both ministers of their activities after a joint meeting in Washington in June, including recent consultations in Paris and Geneva on humanitarian issues and security aspects in the Karabakh conflict.

The co-chairs noted the positive results of the parties' efforts to minimize violence in the summer, including the use of existing direct channels of communication, and expressed deep regret over the recent fatal incident.

The co-chairs and ministers continued to discuss additional measures to reduce tensions and maintain an atmosphere conducive to peace and conducive to substantive negotiations. Referring to their statement of March 9, the co-chairs called on the parties to minimize the use of rhetoric that undermines or determines the outcome of the negotiations.

The co-chairs intend to visit the region in the near future.