The French, Russian, and U.S. co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group met on January 25 in Stepanakert with Arkady Ghukasian, president of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and the following day in Yerevan with Armenian President Robert Kocharian, Noyan Tapan and RFE/RL\'s Armenian Service reported. Russian co-chair Yury Merzlyakov was quoted by regnum.ru as describing the co-chairs\' meeting with Ghukasian as \"extremely useful\" and as \"substantive and detailed.\" He added that \"we tried to reach agreement on a range of questions.\" Ghukasian for his part was quoted by Noyan Tapan on January 27 as saying that it would be premature to affirm that a settlement of the Karabakh conflict is close as \"there are still many unresolved issues.\" No formal statement was issued after the co-chairs\' talks with Kocharian in Yerevan on January 26, RFE/RL\'s Armenian Service reported. (RFE/RL)