Karabakh foreign minister pessimistic about future of Karabakh talks

Interfax news agency, Moscow
4 Apr 04

STEPANAKERT

The authorities of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagornyy Karabakh
are not expecting any progress in the peace process.

“Negotiations now have more obscure prospects, and are more
unpredictable,” Nagornyy Karabakh’s foreign minister Ashot Gulyan has
told Interfax.

“The Karabakh problem is not so important today for Azerbaijan’s
current authorities. This is clear from statements of [President]
Ilham Aliyev, who has suggested starting the negotiations from
scratch, effectively rejecting even what was achieved by his father,”
Gulyan said.

“The Azerbaijani authorities are not serious about the mediating role
of the OSCE Minsk Group, which is confirmed by Baku’s recent refusal
to attend a meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers,
which was supposed to take place in Prague on 29 March,” he said.

“I think that they simply had nothing to say either to the mediators
or partners in the peace process,” Gulyan said.