Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
November 24, 2006 Friday

ALIYEV AND KOCHARJAN WILL MEET IN MINSK;
OSCE mediators want results

by Sohbet Mamedov

RUSSIA, US, AND FRANCE ARE DETERMINED TO HAVE ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
SIGN BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE FUTURE PEACE AGREEMENT OVER
NAGORNO-KARABAKH THIS YEAR; Negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh
continue with OSCE mediators determined to make progress this year.

The latest round of Nagorno-Karabakh talks began, yesterday. OSCE
Minsk Group chairmen Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Matthew Bryuza (US),
and Bernard Fasiet (France) met with Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanjan and President Robert Kocharjan in Yerevan, this Tuesday. A
meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedjarov and
President Ilham Aliyev in Baku is scheduled later today.

Mediators said on the eve of the trip to the conflict area that they
were going there to arrange the third meeting of Armenian and
Azerbaijani presidents this year. According to Tair Tagizade of the
Directorate of Mass Media and Information Policy of the Azerbaijani
Foreign Ministry, the meeting is supposed to take place in the course
of the CIS summit in Minsk, Belarus, on November 28.

Activization of the talks indicates that Russia, United States, and
France want the sides of the conflict signing the basic principles of
the future peace agreement this year.

"2006 offers a unique window of opportunities for an agreement that
will resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," Merzlyuakov said and
added that Yerevan and Baku had said earlier this year that they had
never been so close to signing yet. "Permitting this window of
opportunities to close in early 2007, will be a tragedy for the
presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan."

Mediators are understandably worried by the approach of elections in
Armenia and then in Azerbaijan in 2007 and 2008. Previous campaigns
have taught mediators that Yerevan and Baku do not care about peace
talks before the elections.

Analysts believe that if the international mediators succeed in
arranging Azerbaijani-Armenian talks at the presidential level, it
will signify that foreign ministers of the two countries have found
some tentative formula of solution. The negotiating parties already
have a document to consider. Sources in diplomatic circles claim that
the principal clauses of the draft framework agreement specify the
following: withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijani territory;
refugees’ return to their homes; normalization of diplomatic and
economic relations between the two countries; deployment of
peacekeepers in the conflict area; international economic aid to
Nagorno-Karabakh; referendum on status there.

Armenia is expected to withdraw its army from seven occupied
districts of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan in its turn will establish a 40
kilometer corridor between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia that is to be
controlled by peacekeepers.

Whether or not Baku and Yerevan are prepared to accept it is
something only the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia can answer,
the national leaders the OSCE Minsk Group are applying pressure too.

Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 22, 2006, p. 6