Armenian and Azeri leaders meet in Warsaw

Mediamax news agency
16 May 05

Yerevan, 16 May: The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, Robert
Kocharyan and Ilham Aliyev, have held talks in Warsaw, where both
leaders are taking part in a summit of the Council of Europe.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents had made no statements for
the press after their meeting in the Polish capital in the evening,
on 15 May, a special Mediamax correspondent reported from Warsaw.

Kocharyan and Aliyev started their meeting in the presence of
the Russian and French foreign ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Michel
Barnier; the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers and also the
co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk group. Half an hour later the Armenian
and Azerbaijani presidents continued the meeting for another two
hours on a one-to-one basis.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov refrained from making any
comments. “I cannot comment on the issues which are being discussed
by the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents,” the head of the Russian
Foreign Ministry said.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said that during the
meeting with the Russian and French ministers, Kocharyan and Aliyev
“summed up some results of the discussions within the Prague process”.

Mammadyarov noted that the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders should
have discussed some aspects of the Prague process. At the same time,
the Azerbaijani foreign minister said that the presidents have not
been discussing any specific plans for settling the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict. “The main problem is in the detail. We have managed to
reach agreement on many issues, but there are some issues on which
the positions of the sides differ strongly,” Elmar Mammadyarov said.

The head of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry expressed the hope that
Robert Kocharyan and Ilham Aliyev’s meeting in Warsaw “would allow
them to look at what has been done up until now”.