ARMENIAN SIDE AGREES TO MEETING OF PRESIDENTS OF ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN

Today, Azerbaijan
Nov 22 2006

The Armenian side has agreed to a meeting between the presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is likely to take place in Minsk on
November 28.

This was announced by OSCE Minsk Group cochairman from Russia Yuri
Merzlyakov in a press briefing at Zvartnots airport on Wednesday,
shortly before the cochairmen’s departure.

Merzlyakov described as "rich in content and effective" the meetings
with Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian.

"We still need to get the Azerbaijani side’s consent regarding the
meeting, in Baku later today, although earlier Azerbaijan’s Foreign
Minister Mammadyarov made a corresponding statement in this regard,"
the Russian cochairman said.

Commenting on the fact that only two of the three cochairmen of the
Minsk Group arrived in Yerevan, Merzlyakov said that they had agreed
on the division of work and U.S. cochairman Matthew Bryza "one of
these days is due to meet Arkady Ghukasian, who is now on a visit to
the United States."

"On the whole, we think that the year is ending on a pretty optimistic
note," the Russian cochairman said, adding: "If we manage to keep
this mood of the sides, and we hope that we will manage to do that,
then we will enter 2007 with quite good prospects."

According to French cochairman Bernard Fassier, "settling such a
conflict is like building a wall of peace."

"Every time we try to help the sides to put one or two bricks into that
wall, and we keep adding bricks, it is good," the French cochairman
stated, emphasizing: "But the wall now is not strong enough yet to
make it possible to write an ultimate settlement agreement."

"As Armenian foreign minister said, from October we presented not new,
but additional elements, and we hope that those additional elements
will give an opportunity to implement that approach," Fassier said.

To the question about Azerbaijan’s war rhetoric, Merzlyakov expressed
an opinion that in the recent period fewer such statements have
been made.

"We always assume that similar "passionate" rhetoric impedes the
process, especially when those statements are made on the threshold
of some important meeting or at crucial moments," Merzlyakov said.

"Anyway, we didn’t feel that it would essentially obstruct the basic
task to complete 2006 with the third meeting of the presidents."

"In this sense in Washington, Paris and Moscow we have one position
that war cannot be a real possibility for settling this conflict,"
Fassier said. RFE/RL.

URL: