First Nagorno-Karabakh War
Back in January 1992, the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe allowed many former Soviet republics including Armenia and Azerbaijan to join the organization at a meeting that was held in Prague, where the British delegation stated that now the CSCE should take action on Nagorno-Karabakh. The CSCE held another meeting in Helsinki on 24 March and there the foreign ministers decided to have a peace conference on the territorial matter. The Minsk Conference, named after the host country, Belarus, was supposed to take place with Armenia, Azerbaijan, nine other CSCE members as well as both Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh, but it never came true due to the on-going and escalated war. Instead, the Minsk Group of the CSCE was launched the same year; Mario Rafaelli, who was a former Deputy Foreign Minister of Italy, served as its first chairperson and the first negotiations took place in Rome.