THERE ARE NO DETAILS ABOUT KOCHARYAN-ALIYEV MEETING
Lragir.am
05 June 06
On June 4 the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Bucharest.
The meeting started in the presence of the foreign ministers of
Armenia and Azerbaijan, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, the OSCE
Chairman-in Office Karel de Gucht, and the personal representative of
the OSCE Chairman-in-Office. Then the meeting of the presidents went
on tete-a-tete. No details of the meeting have been reported so far.
It is also uncertain whether the meeting will have a continuation on
June 5.
This probably means that the meeting will not have a significant
outcome. In fact, it became clear long before the meeting, from
the statements of Robert Kocharyan and Ilham Aliyev, preceding the
meeting. Ilham Aliyev had announced before leaving for Bucharest
that Azerbaijan would retrieve all the lands, and Robert Kocharyan
had stated that he was not optimistic about this meeting.
Yet it was clear even before the statements of the presidents that
rumors about a breakthrough or a document were invented, considering
the statement of the deputy foreign ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chair countries in Yerevan. Arriving in the region on May 24,
on May 25 the OSCE Minsk Group made a statement. The Minsk Group
stated that now is the time for the sides to reach agreement on a
settlement. “What happens now will be up to Armenia and Azerbaijan,”
concluded the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group. And it was natural
that nothing would be up to Armenia and Azerbaijan, first because
everything had already been decided, and second, the interests and
expectations of Armenia and Azerbaijan are quite different. And as long
as they are different, any attempt to make a decision is definitely
doomed to failure.