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OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia Miroslav Lajčák on Wednesday reaffirmed the organization’s continued support to finding a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict and also his full support to the work and engagement of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

“Our OSCE chairmanship is focused on people: the three keywords are people, dialogue and stability, and we are focusing on conflict prevention and building a safer future. And with this in mind, I am travelling to the region, inclined to listen to people whose life has been affected by conflicts and to better understand the situation on the ground,” he told a joint news conference with Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan in Yerevan.

The OSCE head welcomed the decrease in violence along the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact and expressed confidence it would contribute to the implementation of the comprehensive process aimed at the peaceful settlement of the conflict.

“We are realistic about the challenges and there are plenty, but at the same time we believe we have good reasons to be positive about the process and about what we have seen in the last couple of months.

“I also want to stress how important it is to focus on preparing population for peace, how important it is to engage in confidence-building measures and in the risk reduction,” Lajčák stressed.

He said they obviously understand that the conflict has not been resolved yet, but they believe that the step-by-step approach and increasing dialogue will lead to small achievements to improve people’s lives.

“Our chairmanship is committed to supporting a negotiated, peaceful and sustainable resolution of the conflict,” he stressed.

Lajčák also added that they are going to procced very quickly with the process of opening an embassy of Slovakia in Yerevan, which would further broaden the scope of bilateral cooperation.