OSCE Karabakh mediators arrive in Azeri capital

Lider TV, Baku
15 Jul 04

[Presenter] After meetings in Yerevan and Xankandi [Stepanakert], the
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen arrived in Baku this morning. Although
the Russian co-chairman, Yuriy Merzlyakov, described the talks as
fruitful, he said no new proposal had been made during the
discussions. Merzlyakov also commented on the participation of
Nagornyy Karabakh’s Armenian community as a third party in the talks.

[Passage omitted: Merzlyakov about the aim of the visit]

[Correspondent] How realistic is the participation of the Armenian
community of Nagornyy Karabakh in the talks as a third party?

[Merzlyakov] I cannot say. The issue of changing the format of the
talks should be resolved preliminarily by the current parties to the
conflict.

[Presenter] The head of the foreign relations department at the
Azerbaijani presidential administration, Novruz Mammadov, said that
statements about the signing of the cease-fire agreement [in Bishkek
in 1994] by the occupation regime [in Nagornyy Karabakh] were wide of
the mark. Mammadov said that official Baku did not intend to give its
consent to the participation of representatives from the
self-proclaimed republic in the talks as a [third] party.

[Mammadov, speaking to microphone] Russian and other co-chairmen in
the OSCE Minsk Group should act in line with the mandate that the OSCE
granted to the group. This mandate does not envisage the participation
of the Nagornyy Karabakh community in the resolution process. Their
participation in the talks is envisaged only together with the
Azerbaijani community, as parties interested in the solution. We do
not recognize the signing by [the Armenian community of] Nagornyy
Karabakh of the document, later presented by Armenians in the form you
refer to.