NO AGREEMENT YET ON KEY ARMENIAN-AZERI SUMMIT
By Harry Tamrazian in Prague

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 19 2006

Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said on Friday that he and his
Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov failed to set a date
for the next, potentially decisive Armenian-Azerbaijani summit on
Nagorno-Karabakh during talks in Strasbourg the previous night.

The two men met in the presence of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs
on the sidelines of a regular session of the Council of Europe’s
decision-making Committee of Ministers. The American, French and
Russian mediators hope than another face-to-face meeting between
Presidents Ilham Aliev and Robert Kocharian will yield a breakthrough
in the Karabakh peace process.

A Kocharian spokesman said earlier this month that the meeting’s venue
and exact date is likely to be agreed by Mammadyarov and Oskanian
at Strasbourg. However, this clearly did not happen, with Oskanian
explaining that Baku and Yerevan have not yet laid the groundwork
for the crucial summit.

“Discussions focused on the proposals and ideas that have been on
the table,” he told RFE/RL by phone, referring to the Strasbourg talks.

“Overall, it was not a bad meeting. However, there are still many
issues that have not yet been agreed on.”

Oskanian went on to indicate that the Aliev-Kocharian encounter might
therefore not take place at all. “While not ruling out the possibility
of such a meeting at this point, I can’t say for certain that it will
take place because a lot depends on the co-chairs’ high-level visit
to the region.”

In a further sign of the seriousness of their intentions, the co-chairs
will begin the visit on May 25 together with more high-ranking
diplomats, including U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried
and Russian Deputy Foreign Minster Grigory Karasin. The mediators
will discuss with the conflicting parties their new unpublicized
peace proposals put forward following the collapse of the last
Aliev-Kocharian meeting that took place in Rambouillet, France in
February.

“The co-chairs see a new momentum after Rambouillet and they believe
that by raising the level [of their diplomacy] they can attract more
attention and will try during their visit to create a situation that
will convince the parties to agree to a meeting of the presidents,”
said Oskanian.