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 Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian remarked on the year 2011 Monday reaffirming the harmony of the positions of Armenia and the international community achieved during the recent years; and the developments which took place stressed the correctness and effectiveness of the chosen course.

In 2011 the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries - Russia, the United States and France continued to exert efforts towards the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.

The international community reaffirmed the approaches continuously reflected in the frames of the OSCE during the last four year.

On March 5, by the initiative and in the presence of the President of the Russian Federation a meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan took place in Sochi, resulting in an agreement on seeking to solve all contentious issues by peaceful means and conduct investigations – with the participation of sides – into possible incidents along the ceasefire line. However, the Azerbaijani side hindered the creation of such mechanism during the year.

The leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries Dmitry Medvedev, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy issued a joint statement addressed to all sides during the G8 Summit held on May 26 2011 in Deauville reaffirming some of the principles of international law and settlement elements as a basis for the resolution of the issue. It was particularly stressed that the peaceful settlement has no alternative and the use of force would be strongly condemned by the international community.

The trilateral meeting of the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan held on June 24, 2011 in Kazan did not achieve progress because of the Azerbaijani leadership’s backtracking from the reached agreements and proposing many new amendments.

By the mediation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov, during the year series of rounds of
negotiations were held between Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and
Azerbaijan.

Continuing the mediation efforts towards the peaceful settlement of the issue, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs - Bernard Fassier, Robert Bradtke, Igor Popov and Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, paid numerous visits to the region - Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku.

On December 6-7 a joint five-sided statement was adopted by the Heads of Delegation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries and the Foreign Minister of Armenia and Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, which reaffirmed that there could be no alternative to reaching a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue other than through peaceful means and based on international law, reaffirmed the importance of the creation of mechanism to investigate ceasefire violations and the withdrawal of snipers.