Karabakh talks deadlocked – Azeri paper

Zaman, Baku
28 Apr 05

Excerpt from unattributed report by Azerbaijani newspaper Zaman on 28
April headlined “The Prague talks are in deadlock”

The talks between the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers seem
to have reached deadlock. From this point of view, it is no
coincidence that the venue and timing of the meeting had been changed.
Elmar Mammadyarov and Vardan Oskanyan, who say that they have met in
Prague four or five times and parted with great optimism after every
meeting, recently failed to have tete-a-tete meetings twice. This
gives grounds to assume that there are serious problems in the
process. On the other hand, unlike Mammadyarov, Oskanyan’s absence
from the meeting with the [OSCE Minsk Group] co-chairmen in Frankfurt,
Germany, raised many questions. Political analysts who draw attention
mainly to this aspect of the issue describe this step by Armenia as an
attempt to exert pressure on Azerbaijan.

[Passage omitted: Armenia declined to hold talks after the January
2004 session of the presidents of the CIS countries and resumed them
after the UN debates over Karabakh]

The course of events showed that Armenia had agreed to resume the
talks just to bide its time. The visit to Baku by the US co-chairman
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Steven Mann, in the run-up to the Azerbaijani
foreign minister’s meeting with the co-chairmen in Frankfurt also
raised great interest. Of course, we can see from Mann’s meetings in
Baku that there are several reasons for his visit to our country.
According to some reports, at the meeting with Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev, Mann learnt the president’s attitude to the proposals
that had been put forward by the co-chairmen to solve the problem. The
fact that Mammadyarov returned from Frankfurt together with Mann shows
that the co-chairmen’s proposals satisfy Baku to some extent. Oskanyan
did not attend the Frankfurt meeting. It is still not known why
Oskanyan did not visit Frankfurt. The co-chairmen also prefer to keep
quiet about this.

[Russian co-chairman] Yuriy Merzlyakov said only the following: “We
will have consultations with Oskanyan in a European country after we
meet Mammadyarov in Frankfurt.”

As we understand, Oskanyan resolutely expressed his position during
the London meeting with the co-chairmen. It must be remembered that
the co-chairmen admitted that the meeting between the Azerbaijani and
Armenian presidents depends on the results of the two foreign
ministers’ meeting.

“In any case, we must welcome the fact that the co-chairmen made
certain proposals during the talks. Because previously, they only
visited the region and did not put forward any new proposals,”
political scientist Rasim Musabayov said, commenting on the talks
between the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers attended by the
co-chairmen.

Musabayov explained Oskanyan’s absence from the meeting by
difficulties arising during the talks. He said that only the
presidents can have a final say about certain points in the talks.

The talks held between the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers
with the participation of the co-chairmen have entered a decisive
stage. Their results will be made public in the near future.