Today, Azerbaijan
April 27 2005

Azeri politicians do not expect break in a meeting of Armenian and
Azeri foreign ministers

Elmar Namazov, the co-founder of the ‘New Policy’ bloc, a political
scientist, considers the forthcoming meeting of the Armenian and
Azerbaijani FMs, Vardan Oskanian and Elmar Mammadyarov, to be held in
Frankfurt on Wednesday as senseless.

“Taking into consideration that the sides could not reach agreement
on principle issues, as well as the situation on the eve of the
parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, one can state with confidence
that convenient time for compromises was lost,” Namazov told Trend.
The favorable time for compromises will come after the elections. “It
would be so naive to expect a breakthrough until the parliamentary
elections, so it would be talks for the sake of talks,” the political
scientist underlined.

He marked that on the eve of the elections the Karabakh card becomes
more applicable in the domestic struggle. “The opportunities for
compromises in Azerbaijan will appear after the elections. It cannot
be said about Armenia with strong domestic resistance,” he
underlined.

Namazov underlined that real breaks in talks will be possible as soon
as free and transparent elections are held in Armenia and Azerbaijan
and legitimate government is established.

Mubariz Ahmadoglu, the head of the Political Technologies and
Innovations Center, also too far from the optimism in the forthcoming
meeting of the Armenia and Azerbaijani FMs. Today the OSCE Minsk
Group like Armenia is in confusion. Armenia offers to liquidate a
notion of ‘Prague process’, as Armenians associate Prague as place of
domination of Azerbaijan. So the last talks were held in London, and
the next are to be held in Frankfurt. “They try to satisfy the
ambitions of Armenian. So, I don’t believe the talks to be
effective,” Ahmadoglu underlined.

He noted that the initiative in the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict resolution is in Azerbaijan at present. Azerbaijan always
preferred the political resolution to the conflict and after the
establishment of the economic cooperation. Azerbaijan offers joint
use of the Lachin corridor by Azerbaijan and Armenia in parallel to
the talks on political settlement of the conflict. “This is a
concrete proposal awaiting a concrete reply, the Armenian side is not
to answer it and delays the negotiation processes

In his turn Musabayov said that nothing essential should be expected
from the forthcoming meeting of the ministers. “the only result of
the talks might be a meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian
Presidents, to be held in Moscow as part of celebrations of the 60th
anniversary of the victory fascism,” he underlined.

As to Armenian Minister’s avoidance from the direct talks with his
Azerbaijani counterpart, Musabayov clarifies that Oskanian had
nothing to say because he did not have authority to t o take any
resolution.

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