AZERI OFFICIAL SAYS ARMENIAN PULL-OUT FROM SEVEN DISTRICTS ON AGENDA
Turan news agency
13 Jan 05
BAKU
Armenia has acquired an interest in resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict and this gives us hope that the negotiations will produce
some results, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov told a
news conference in Baku today when commenting on the results of the 11
November meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in
Prague.
Azimov said the negotiations were “objective”, however, there are
“very many” differences and the situation remains “difficult”.
Pointing to Armenia’s growing interest in resolving the conflict,
Azimov said he was cautiously optimistic that the negotiations would
produce concrete results. The Armenian side wants to resolve the
conflict. Armenia has to take a more active part in NATO programmes,
the European Union is getting ever nearer, international public
opinion is changing in favour of Azerbaijan and one of the examples of
that is the report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe (PACE) rapporteur on Karabakh, David Atkinson.
(Passage omitted: Reported details)
Azimov described as “speculation” the reports that Armenia’s pullout
from three of Azerbaijani districts was discussed in the
negotiations. He said that as part of “the Prague process” the sides
were discussing the liberation of all seven districts outside Nagornyy
Karabakh in the first stage.
At the same time, Azimov said that in 1998, Azerbaijan had suggested
that five districts be vacated in the first stage in the name of the
TRACECA project. In the spring and summer of 2002, Azerbaijan raised
this issue again. In both cases, the European Union supported the
idea, but it was rejected by the Armenians.
Azimov also dismissed the Armenian side’s speculation about a Key West
agreement. He said the sides had signed only one written document so
far – a joint statement by (former Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents) Heydar Aliyev and Levon Ter-Petrosyan in Strasbourg on 10
October 1997. The sides were close to reaching an agreement in 1999 as
well, but the Armenian side rejected it, Azimov said.