ARMINFO News Agency
September 12, 2006 Tuesday

POLITICAL SCIENTIST: BOTH YEREVAN AND BAKU AUTHORITIES ARE INTERESTED
IN SOONEST SETTLEMENT OF KARABAKH CONFLICT

"The present Armenian authorities are extremely interested in the
soonest settlement of the Karabakh conflict, as would become an
indispensable trump-card before the coming general elections", Sergey
Shakaryants, the expert of the "Caucasus" analytical center, told the
journalists in the "Pastark" club.

According to him, the present authorities both in Yerevan and in Baku
are interested in the conflict resolution before or during 2008, when
the Presidential elections will be held both in Armenia and in
Azerbaijan. "Otherwise, they will have to play internal political
games, conditioned on the conflict in Karabakh", the expert added.

At the same time, he said, the Karabakh conflict solution before the
indicated term is less possible as, according to the world example,
rare cases of conflict solution in pre-election period had taken
place in the countries being under no pressure of external factors.