The time has come to start serious work on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said at a briefing on June 30 following the talks with OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Foreign Minister of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Trend quotes Mammadyarov as saying, "We discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Steinmeier informed me about Armenia's position on the issue."
Azerbaijan unambiguously demands withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the "occupied territories", Mammadyarov said, adding that the time has come to change the status quo, because it is unacceptable to maintain it.
He added that Azerbaijan wants peaceful resolution of the conflict but there should be no talks for the sake of talks. He stressed that the negotiations should give results.
For his part, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the OSCE has always realized that the Karabakh conflict is dangerous.
He said that the OSCE will take all measures and will use all instruments to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Trend reports. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict sides and mediators should achieve a certain result that would prevent the escalation of the situation, added Steinmeier. "We need concrete proposals for that", he said, adding that "the status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can't be maintained further. "Maintaining the status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is unacceptable," said Germany's foreign minister. It is necessary to achieve the constructive settlement of the conflict, said Steinmeier.