Armenian, Azeri presidents to meet over N Karabakh in June
By Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 5, 2006 Friday

A meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny
Karabakh will be held in early June within the framework of a meeting
of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

However, the exact date and the place of the two presidents’ meeting
haven’t been defined yet, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan
said at a forum devoted to the 5th anniversary of Armenia’s membership
in the Council of Europe.

According to Oskanyan, “the Armenian and Azerbaijanian foreign
ministers will discuss issues of preparations of the presidents’
meeting at their meeting in Strasbourg in two weeks.”

“The further pace of the negotiation process,” Oskanyan said,
“mainly depends on the availability of political will on the part of
Azerbaijan’s authorities.” “Just before a meeting of the presidents
in Rambouillet Armenia had made certain steps, and we expect that
the Azerbaijanian side will undertake return steps which will make
it possible to move the process,” the minister said.

The Armenian foreign minister urged not to look for ” a political
hidden motive in the fact that the co-chairmen of the Minisk OSCE
Group for Nagorny Karabakh, representing Russia, France and the United
States, haven’t visited the region together of late.

According to Oskanyan, it was “caused by lack of coincidence of the
mediators’ schedules, in the next few days, a joint visit of the
co-chairmen to the region will be held.”