OSCE chief warns against “aggressive rhetoric” on Karabakh conflict

Mediamax news agency
31 Mar 05

YEREVAN

The OSCE chairman-in-office, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij
Rupel, has said in Yerevan that “the Nagornyy Karabakh problem is a
special case and this conflict cannot be compared with other frozen
conflicts”.

Rupel said this during a news conference in Yerevan on the evening of
30 March, commenting on his address to the meeting of the UN Security
Council on 4 March, in which he called Nagornyy Karabakh a “disputed
territory”, Mediamax news agency reports.

The OSCE chairman-in-office said that “reports about frequent
cease-fire violations on the front line cause serious concern”. “I
hope that everything possible will be done to alleviate the existing
tension,” Rupel said. For this purpose, he noted, the parties must
refrain from “aggressive rhetoric”. Rupel said that he intends to
discuss the situation on the contact line between the parties during
his talks with the Azerbaijani leadership.

“The OSCE does not know any ‘other methods’ of settling conflicts than
peaceful ones,” Rupel said, commenting on Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev’s recent statement that “Azerbaijan will resort to other
methods” if the peace talks on the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict fail.

The OSCE chairman-in-office said that the settlement of the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict topped the agenda of his talks with Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan and Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan. Also
on 30 March, Rupel met the president of the Nagornyy Karabakh
Republic, Arkadiy Gukasyan.

Armenian Foreign Minister Oskanyan expressed his confidence that the
Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents would meet either in Moscow or
Warsaw in May this year. He expressed his hope that the meeting would
be productive and allow the foreign ministers of the two countries to
speed up their dialogue.