OSCE MINSK GROUP CONSULTATIONS TO BE HELD IN BAKU

ITAR-TASS, Russia
May 24 2006

BAKU, May 24 (Itar-Tass) – The Russian, French and US co-chairs of
the OSCE Minsk Group, Yuri Merzlyakov, Bernard Fassier and Stephen
Mann, will discuss in the course of political consultations with
the Azerbaijani leadership here on Wednesday issues related to the
Karabakh conflict settlement.

According to diplomatic sources in Baku, the delegations of the
countries mediators in the conflict settlement are headed by
Russian deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin, French Foreign
Ministry’s Ambassador at Large Pierre Morel and US Deputy Secretary
of State Daniel Freed. The same sources claim that the international
negotiators’ higher status can be explained by the discussion of
“new ideas” of the co-chairmen of the Minsk Group for settling the
Karabakh problem.

Official Baku, adhering to the confidentially principle, has not
commented so far on the nature of ideas that will be brought to
the region by the mediators. It is not ruled out here that they
will discuss during consultations with Azerbaijani President Ilkham
Aliyev and afterwards with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan the
possibilities and dates of talks between the two countries’ leaders.

Last time Aliyev and Kocharyan met in Rambouillet, a Paris suburb,
in February 2006, but failed to reach specific agreements on the
settlement principles.

The Karabakh conflict is believed to be in Azerbaijan “the greatest
obstacle on the way of the political and economic development of the
country and region in general. The country’s top leadership has not
once stressed this.