KOCHARIAN AND ALIEV PARTED IN GOOD MOOD

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
16 May 05

In the evening of May 15 the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met
in Warsaw, at the residence of the president of Poland. According to
the press secretary of the president of Armenia Victor Soghomonian,
in the first half of the meeting which lasted for three hours the
foreign ministers of Russia and France Sergey Lavrov and Michel
Barnien took part, too. Later the foreign ministers of Armenia and
Azerbaijan Vardan Oskanian and Elmar Mamediarov, as well as the OSCE
Minsk Group co-chairs joined the heads of states. The last hour of
the meeting the presidents talked tete-a-tete. However, after the
talks no details were released to press, except that the presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan had discussed the issue of Nagorno Karabakh and
decided that the talks should be further conducted on a ministerial
level. Despite the confidentiality of the details of the meeting,
the foreign minister of Azerbaijan E. Mamediarov, commenting on
the meeting of the presidents, told the press that the parties
had discussed the principles of the Prague process on Karabakh and
“reached certain results”. The phrase of the press secretary of the
president of Armenia that “after the meeting the presidents of Armenia
and Azerbaijan seemed to be in good mood” also testifies to this.

CHRISTINE MNATSAKANIAN.
19-05-2005