ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
January 14, 2005 Friday 12:08 PM Eastern Time

Moscow notes signs of rapprochement in Karabakh settlement

By Sergei Bushuyev

MOSCOW

Moscow noted with satisfaction on Friday that the meetings between
Armenian and Azerbaijani officials at various levels, including
between the presidents and within the framework of “the Prague
process”, have become regular.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said so in connection with the talks in
Prague earlier this week between Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mamedyarov.

Taking part in the meeting were co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk group
for Nagorno Karabakh settlement /Russia, the United States and
France/.

At the consultations, Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives review
practically all aspects of the situation related to the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict, including troops withdrawal, the demilitarization
of the territory, international guarantees, and the status of Nagorno
Karabakh.

“Both parties confirm their readiness to continue joint work,
oriented toward the necessity to seek an easing of tensions around
the Nagorno Karabakh problem and, consequently, normalization of the
situation in the whole region of southern Caucasus,” the Russian
Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry also noted certain headway in a rapprochement of Yerevan
and Baku’s views and their conceptual approaches.

Fitting in this context are the parties’ accords to continue the
implementation of the earlier decision on sending officials from the
OSCE Minsk group to the occupied territories around Nagorno Karabakh
with a fact-finding mission, and work toward organizing a new meeting
between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in Warsaw this
summer.

Moscow reiterates its readiness to contribute, together with the
other participants of the OSCE Minsk group, to the deepening of
mutual understanding between Armenia and Azerbaijan with the aim of
resolving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict through talks and by peaceful
means, the Russian Foreign Ministry underlined.