YEREVAN -- International mediators say they will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan soon to prepare for the next meeting of the two countries' presidents, which they hope will pave the way for a framework peace accord on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.
The American, French, and Russian diplomats who cochair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group met in Washington on September 24 to discuss their upcoming trip with two senior U.S. officials dealing with the South Caucasus.
The cochairs held separate talks with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in New York the next day.
In a joint statement on September 26, the Minsk Group leaders said, "The two foreign ministers and cochairs reaffirmed a commitment to negotiations based on the basic principles [of Nagorno-Karabakh peace]" and discussed the cochairs' trip to the region "in early October."
A proposed meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian is to take place in Chisinau on the sidelines of the October 8-9 summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The mediators hope that Aliyev and Sarkisian can iron out their remaining differences over the settlement principles proposed by them.
They failed to do so at their last meeting held in Moscow in July.