Karabakh leader calls for talks with Azerbaijan

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
8 Nov 04

[Presenter] Azerbaijan is not ready for negotiations, the Artsakh
[Nagornyy Karabakh] president [Arkadiy Gukasyan] has said in an
interview with “Aylur” programme [of Armenian Public TV]. He added
that the Karabakh side was ready to discuss any issue in any format.

Arkadiy Gukasyan described as a propaganda the Azerbaijani authorities’
clamour over visits of international organizations to Artsakh.

[Arkadiy Gukasyan, captioned] We are ready to negotiate with Azerbaijan
in any format, with and without Armenia. I must say that our position
is very constructive. We are ready to discuss with Azerbaijan any
issues, starting from the issues of the status [of Nagornyy Karabakh],
refugees and [occupied] territories. It is a different matter that
Azerbaijan is not ready today to negotiate with Karabakh and, in fact,
Azerbaijan’s current position is an ultimatum.

I consider that the world community and the co-chairmen of the OSCE
Minsk Group can draw a conclusion from these approaches and report on
Azerbaijan’s current position [at talks] today. As for discussing this
or another issue out of a package, I think that this is illogical. I
reiterate, we are ready to discuss any issues, but we consider that
these issues must be discussed in the general context.