AZERBAIJAN ‘AGAINST REFERENDUM IN KARABAKH’
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
July 3 2006

A senior Azerbaijani official said on Monday that Azerbaijan has
never accepted a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that would
culminate in a referendum in the disputed territory, despite Armenian
claims to the contrary.

Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov was quoted by the Turan news
agency as saying that Baku believes such a vote should instead take
place on Azerbaijan’s entire internationally recognized territory.

"That is reflected in the [Azerbaijani] constitution and the country’s
leadership does not intend to revise its opinion," he said.

In a statement last week, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said at the
heart of a peaceful settlement proposed by the American, French and
Russian mediators is the idea of enabling Karabakh’s predominantly
Armenian population to determine its status in a referendum after
the liberation of most Armenian-occupied lands in Azerbaijan proper.

The ministry asserted that Presidents Ilham Aliev and Robert
Kocharian agreed on this formula during their recent face-to-face
negotiations. "The area of disagreement between the presidents has
to do with the sequence in which the consequences of the military
conflict are removed," it said.

A separate statement by the mediators made public two days later
likewise said that Karabakh’s status would be decided in a "referendum
or population vote." But it did not specify where that vote would
take place and who would be eligible to participate in it.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian insisted on Thursday that
the framework peace accord put forward by the mediators makes it
clear that the decision on the status is to be made by the "population
of Nagorno-Karabakh."

Azimov was reported to have denied this, accusing Yerevan of
"distorting the content of the talks" and interpreting the referendum
idea "in a manner advantageous to them." He also indicated Baku’s
discontent with the mediators’ statement, saying that the French,
Russian and U.S. co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group disclosed and
"took out of context" only some key points of the proposed peace deal.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress