ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
March 9, 2007 Friday

Armenia expects positive results from Karabakh talks

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan expects positive results
from the talks with his Azeri counterpart Elmar Mamediarov, which are
to be held in Geneva next week. “Of course, if there will be nothing
unexpected from the Azeri side,” he noted.

“As distinct from the Azeri side, the Armenian statements are always
in keeping with the actual contents of the negotiations, and
sometimes one may get the impression that Armenia is adhering to a
more compromising stand than Azerbaijan,” Oskanyan believes.

The minister said the mediators were now preparing most carefully the
ground for the upcoming meeting of the foreign ministers of the two
countries. This is especially borne out by the fact that French
Co-Chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group for Nagorny Karabakh Bernard
Facier had visited Yerevan this week and is now in Baku, whence he
will come back here again on Monday. The mediators are striving to
arrange a new meeting between the presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan after the parliamentary elections in Armenia, which are
scheduled for May 12, and are endeavouring, in view of that meeting,
“to settle as many outstanding problems as possible at the level of
foreign ministers,” Oskanyan believes.

During his recent meeting in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, Oskanyan stated that Armenia was still adhering to
the document, which is being discussed at the negotiations. The draft
of the framework principles of settlement, tabled by the co-chairmen
of the Minsk Group (Russia, France and the United States) stipulates
the withdrawn of Armenian forces from the occupied territories of
Azerbajan, the stationing of peacemakers there, the rendering of
international economic aid to the Karabakh Region, and the eventual
holding of a referendum on the future status of Nagorny Karabakh.

“We deem it premature to discuss the problem of the return of
Azerbaijanians to Nagorny Karabakh prior to the determination of the
parameters and date of the referendum on Nagorny Karabakh, which is
to determine the status of that region,” the minister stated. He
recalled that Armenia and Azerbaijan had so far only agreed that the
status of Nagorny Karabakh should be determined by its population,
but the details of this process were still being discussed.