At a meeting in Madrid following the OSCE Foreign Ministers Council summit, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner expressed their countries' continued support for a diplomatic and permanent settlement for the Nagorno-Karabakh and presented a document of conditions for future negotiations on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh to the two countries' foreign ministers.

In the meeting, the representatives of the United States, France and Russia formally presented a set of Basic Principles for the Peaceful Settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict to the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers for transmission to the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

U.S. officials have said talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the basic principles for negotiating a settlement have stalled on a few remaining points.

It was noted, however, that over the last three years of talks the two sides had significantly narrowed their differences through the mediation of the Co-Chair countries and that only a few differences remained to be settled.

"The joint proposal that was transmitted today to the parties offered just and constructive solutions to these last remaining differences," the State Department said in a statement.

The three diplomats urged the two sides to accept the document as a starting point for talks on a final settlement.