President Serzh Sargsyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev participated in a Vienna-hosted meeting on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement on Monday, May 16.

The summit was the first one since the escalation in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone.

Also attending the meeting were the foreign policy chiefs of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries – Russia, France and the United States – Sergey Lavrov, Jean-Marc Ayrault and John Kerry, as well as French Secretary of State for European Affairs Harlem Desir.

Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov, the Minsk Group Co-chairs – James Warlick of the United States, Igor Popov of Russia, Pierre Andrieu of France – and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk also took part in the 2-hour meeting.

At the meeting, the parties discussed the situation in the Karabakh conflict zone following early April’s 4-day war, and the ways to overcome the consequences. The representatives of the co-chairing countries insisted on the need for an unconditional adherence to the 1994 ceasefire agreement and the 1995 ceasefire consolidation agreements.

Also, the sides agreed to take steps to install mechanisms for monitoring and investigating ceasefire violations, increase the capacity of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office’s team, also pledging to work towards a possible renewal of the negotiation process.

Prior to this, President Sargsyan met with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and Secretary Kerry.