FRENCH MEDIATOR HOPES FOR "SPURT" IN NAGORNO KARABAKH SETTLEMENT TALKS

Regnum, Russia
May 24 2007

If basic principles of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement are
not approved by the end of 2007, taking into account forthcoming
electoral processes in Armenia and Azerbaijan, the talks will have to
be started afresh, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair Bernard Fassier (France)
announced at a news conference today.

As a REGNUM correspondent reports, to substantiate his words, the
French co-chair cited last presidential and parliamentary elections
in Armenia and Azerbaijan that were the reason why the negotiation
process was slowed down right up to "starting everything anew."

According to Fassier, now one can hope that a "spurt" is achieved in
the talks by the end of the year in discussing basic principles of
the conflict settlement, which will allow start major preparations.

In his turn, Russian OSCE MG Co-Chair Yuri Merzlyakov noted that
under the co-chairs’ assessments there are objective premises for it.

At the same time, the Russian co-chair believes that for final
settlement of the conflict political will and capability to change
the information and propaganda approach of the parties is needed. He
informed that now the parties’ approach to the talks is the following:
"nothing is agreed upon and decided until everything is agreed and
decided upon." Meanwhile, Merzlyakov noted that recently they managed
to make the range of uncoordinated issues narrower.