Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to have again failed to overcome their differences and make any progress in negotiations over the protracted Nagorno-Karabakh dispute as their foreign ministers held fresh talks responding to a call by the leaders of the mediating countries.

The July 16-17 meetings between Armenia’s Edward Nalbandyan and Azerbaijan’s Elmar Mammadyarov, held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on the margins of an OSCE ministerial meeting, had been urged by the presidents of the United States, Russia and France, who made a reference to that effect in their joint statement issued from the G8 summit late last month.

Barack Obama, Dimitry Medvedev and Nicolas Sarkozy also said the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan “need to take the next step and complete the work on the Basic Principles to enable the drafting of a peace agreement to begin.”

According to media reports, Nalbandyan and Mammadyarov began their talks in the Kazakh city late on Friday and met again the next day in the presence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.

In a joint statement issued the same day, Lavrov, Kouchner and Steinberg, as the heads of the delegations of Russia, France and the United States at the talks, stressed that “the efforts made so far by the parties to the conflict have not been sufficient to overcome their differences.”

The three officials also “deplored recent developments which have increased tension in the region, including the serious armed incident of June 18-19, 2010 and inflammatory public statements” and warned that “the use of force created the current situation, and its use again would only lead to suffering, devastation, and a legacy of conflict and hostility that would last for generations.”

Deadly fighting erupted in Karabakh last month as Azerbaijani commandos made an unsuccessful attempt to overrun the Karabakh Armenian positions in the northeast, killing four and wounding as many Armenian soldiers. One Azeri soldier was also reportedly killed in the close engagement. The overnight clash, which occurred within hours after the latest round of peace talks between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan and was condemned by Yerevan as a provocation, emphasized the shaky state of the ceasefire that has largely held in the conflict zone for 16 years. The Russia-brokered agreement of 1994 put an end to nearly three years of fighting in Karabakh that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives on both sides.

In their latest statement the diplomats of Russia, France and the United States urged “a greater spirit of compromise to reach agreement on a common basis for continuing the negotiations.”

“Additional actions by the sides are needed to reinforce the ceasefire of 1994 and to create a more favorable atmosphere for further political dialogue and reaching agreements. The Heads of Delegation of the Co-Chair countries renewed their commitment to support the sides in reaching a peace agreement, but reiterated that the primary responsibility to put an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict still remains with Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders,” said the statement (its full text is available here:http://www.osce.org/item/45344.html).