RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT COOLS DOWN OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK FOR SPEEDY KARABAKH AGREEMENT
Armenpress
Feb 08 2007
BAKU, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS: A Russian diplomat cooled down a cautious
optimistic outlook that Armenia and Azerbaijan could hammer out a
peace agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh dispute after Armenia has its
parliamentary elections, scheduled for May 12.
In an interview with Azerbaijani Trend news agency Yuri Merzlyakov,
the Russian cochairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, said Armenian and
Azerbaijani presidents would hardly have another face-to-face meeting
before May 12, explaining that the peace brokers have little time
to prepare such a meeting. Merzlyakov, Bernard Fassier of France
and Mathew Bryza of the USA make the OSCE Minsk Group, the only
international body mandated to help the two South Caucasian neighbors
find a mutually acceptable peace formula to end their protracted
dispute.
The Russian diplomat disagreed with Mathew Bryza’s remarks who
was quoted by RFE/RL as saying that ‘Armenia and Azerbaijan don’t
agree 100 percent on the basic principles of a peaceful settlement,
but they are close, very close." `They agree on the philosophy of
the basic principles and most of the basic principles themselves,’
Bryza was quoted as saying.
Bryza also said that though the parties will have to solve `a lot of
technical issues that are really outstanding,’ Armenia and Azerbaijan
may cut a long- awaited peace deal during the period between the May
parliamentary elections in Armenia and the 2008 presidential elections
due in both countries.
`I think there is going to be a bit of a timeout in terms of the
[Armenian and Azerbaijani] presidents’ diplomacy now, with the
parliamentary elections in Armenia, but I think all the other
diplomacy can continue, and I think after the elections there is
a strong possibility that the presidents will reinvigorate their
negotiations,’ Bryza was quoted by RFE/RL as saying. But Merzlyakov
said what Bryza terms as technical issues in fact are not technical
only. He said he would agree rather with an assessment by Azeri
foreign minister Elmar Mamedyarov that Armenia and Azerbaijan still
have to surmount one or two contentious issues before to forge ahead.
Merzlyakov said he and his colleagues would like Armenian and
Azeri foreign ministers to have another meeting in early March. ‘We
are working in this direction but we have not yet reached a final
arrangement and we would like them to meet in early March and not
later," he said.
After touring Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in late January
the Minsk Group urged in a joint statement leaders of Armenia and
Azerbaijan to `prepare their publics for the necessary compromises.’