ARMENIAN, AZERI FOREIGN MINISTERS WERE ONE STEP AWAY FROM STRIKING PEACE DEAL
ArmenPress
Dec 24 2004
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 24, ARMENPRESS: In an interview with Russian Regnum
news agency Russian cochairman of the OSCE Minsk group, Yuri Merzlyakov
said foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan were one step away
from striking a peace deal during their recent meeting in Prague that
would put an end to more than a decade-long Armenian-Azeri opposition
over Nagorno Karabagh.
Merzlyakov said provisions of a draft agreement, reached by the
ministers in Prague were to be considered by presidents Robert
Kocharian an Ilham Aliyev after their meeting on the sidelines of
a CIS summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, together with the Minsk group
cochairmen to make the final decision “to either accept it or not.”
The Russian diplomat said Azerbaijan’s decision to push for a debate
at the UN General Assembly on the “situation in Azerbaijan’s occupied
territories” has spoiled all plans.” Merzlyakov praised the UN for
suspending debates, adding that Azerbaijan’s motion has blocked the
conflict resolution for several months, but despite this the Russian
diplomat said he hoped that next year meetings of Armenian and Azeri
foreign ministers in Prague would produce positive results.
“I believe that the 2005 will become a decisive year to mark a
breakthrough in the conflict resolution,” he said.