Azernews.Az

The OSCE mission will hold a monitoring on the troops` line of contact near Ashagi Seyidahmedli village of Fuzuli district, Azerbaijan, on March 18 in accordance with the mandate of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.

Azerbaijan`s Defense Ministry reported that the monitoring will be held, on the Azerbaijani side, by field assistants of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Hristo Hristov, Simon Tiller and Peter Swedberg.

From the opposite side, the monitoring will be conducted by Personal Representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk, his field assistants Evgeny Sharov and Jiri Aberle.

Armenia and Azerbaijan remain locked in a bitter territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Armenia-backed separatists seized from Azerbaijan in a bloody war in the early 1990s.

Azerbaijan's internationally recognized Nagorno-Karabakh territory was turned into a battlefield and zone of aggravated tensions after Armenia sent its troops to occupy Azerbaijan's lands. As a result, 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory stands under military occupation. For the past two decades, and despite calls from the international community, Armenia has refused to withdraw its troops and retreat within its national borders.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the U.S. are currently holding peace negotiations.

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