A year after fighting ceased in Nagorno-Karabakh, M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, held a meeting today with Messrs Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively, for separate bilateral meetings during their visit to France for the UNESCO General Assembly.
Following these bilateral meetings, the Minister opened a joint meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani ministers under the aegis of the Minsk Group's three co-chairs ? France, the US and Russia ?, which was aimed at continuing the momentum set in train in New York on 23 September 2021.
In these various discussions, the Minister reiterated France's desire to help strengthen dialogue between the parties, so as to foster lasting peace in the South Caucasus region for its people. He emphasized our determination to maintain the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs' strong involvement in order to attain this goal and repeated his willingness to continue discussions at political level with the two parties.