On 29 March, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, held in Vienna their first meeting under the auspices of the Co-Chairs of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group.

The recommitment by the leaders to strengthening the ceasefire and to promoting an environment conducive to peace, as well as their stated readiness to take further steps toward result-oriented negotiations, is encouraging.

The European Union looks forward to the implementation of the Vienna agreement to develop measures in the humanitarian field, as well as of the agreement on measures to prepare the populations for peace, reached by the Foreign Ministers in Paris on 16 January 2019 and stands ready to support these efforts.

The European Union reiterates its full support to the mediation efforts and proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, including through the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, as well as through civil society confidence-building measures across the conflict divide.