KARABAKH LEADER DOWNBEAT ON CONFLICT SETTLEMENT IN 2005

Mediamax news agency
6 Sep 05

Yerevan, 6 September: The president of the Nagornyy Karabakh republic
[NKR], Arkadiy Gukasyan, thinks that the settlement of the [Karabakh]
conflict by the end of this year is “unrealistic”.

Arkadiy Gukasyan said this after a meeting with the OSCE
chairman-in-office and Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel on
the evening of 5 September, Mediamax reports.

“At present, Azerbaijan acts more constructively, however, it is still
difficult to make tangible progress,” Gukasyan said. At the same time,
he described as positive the fact that Azerbaijan is speaking about
the possibility of holding a referendum on the status of Nagornyy
Karabakh. Gukasyan himself “does not imagine the NKR’s status other
than independence”.

Gukasyan welcomes regular meetings between the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents, but insists that “it is impossible to resolve the
problem without Nagornyy Karabakh’s involvement”. He believes that
“Karabakh’s non-involvement in the negotiations damages not so much
Nagornyy Karabakh as the negotiating process itself”.

“The conflict can be resolved if the sides demonstrate political will
and readiness to take risks,” the Karabakh president believes. “None
of the sides in the settlement process will get what they dream
of, i.e. it is to give something up in order to get something else
instead.” Moreover, “this applies both to Azerbaijan and Nagornyy
Karabakh, and to a lesser extent to Armenia”, Gukasyan thinks.

Gukasyan said that the NKR leadership “realizes that there may be
unpopular decisions, however, they should be the same for all, not only
for one of the sides”. “For example, there is a group of people in the
NKR who do not accept even negotiations with Azerbaijan,” he admitted.

“We are ready to go our part of the way if Azerbaijan is ready for
this,” the NKR president said.