The OSCE Minsk Group, which has long been the primary mediator between Azerbaijan and Armenia during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has officially been dissolved after Yerevan and Baku agreed to its dissolution.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) published a statement announcing the dissolution of the Minsk Group on Monday.
The Minsk Group’s chair, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, extended her congratulations to Armenia and Azerbaijan ‘on their historic agreements towards peace and normalisation’, and commended them for their ‘collaborative spirit in achieving the consensus’.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had signed an agreement to dissolve the Minsk Group alongside US President Donald Trump in early August.
The group’s dissolution has long been a demand by Azerbaijan as a precondition to signing a peace agreement with Armenia.
The OSCE’s Secretary General, Feridun Sinirlioğlu, said the move was a ‘historic development that underlines what diplomacy can achieve, even after decades of conflict and mistrust’.
‘It demonstrates that agreement remains possible when there is a shared determination between parties to find common ground’, he added.
The organisation’s statement said that they will take steps to implement the closure of the Minsk Group and its structures, with only administrative functions, such as the handover of assets and equipment, continuing until the process is completed no later than 1 December 2025.
On the same day, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry praised the decision as an ‘important step towards the practical implementation of agreements reached between Azerbaijan and Armenia’ in Washington.
The Minsk Group has been the only internationally mandated format for mediating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since its establishment in 1992.
While both Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to the dissolution of the Minsk Group, Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians have recently advocated for its preservation.
Representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians who were displaced in Armenia following their exodus from the region after Azerbaijan’s takeover in September 2023, submitted in late-August an appeal to OSCE states urging them to prevent the Minsk Group’s dissolution.
The appeal noted that ‘on behalf of the 150,000 Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh [...] forcibly displaced from their ancestral homeland’, they address the member states ‘with deep urgency and grave concern’ regarding the what they called ‘unilateral request’ by Armenia and Azerbaijan to terminate the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group.
‘The conflict cannot be deemed resolved while an entire population remains uprooted, deprived of its inalienable rights’, the appeal read.
The message concluded with a note that legitimising ‘the ethnic cleansing carried out by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and considering the conflict resolved would leave an indelible and bloody stain on the history, authority, and principles of the OSCE’.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
