Presidential Meeting in Bern as Tension on Contact Line Escalates

Armenian President Sargsyan (l.) meets with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan in Bern, Switzerland.

A meeting of President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan took place in Bern, Switzerland.

The meeting, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs is meant to be part of the ongoing negotiations to find a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov (Russia), James Warlick (USA), Pierre Andrieu (France) and the Personal Representative of the OCSE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasperzuk also took part in the meeting, the first in more than a year.

The two presidents then met separately. US Co-Chair James Warlick posted several photos on Twitter noting that the private meeting of the presidents extended more than one hour.

Following their meeting the Foreign Affair Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian and his counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov joined the presidents to continue with the negotiations.

At about 15:30 Yerevan time, Vladimir Hakobyan spokesman for the Armenian president tweeted that the meeting had concluded and as Aliyev left the building, Serzh Sargsyan met briefly again with the Co-Chairs.

In the days leading up to the meeting, tensions along the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact escalated with both sides suffering casualties.