MEDIATORS SAY ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN MAY AGREE SETTLEMENT PRINCIPLES THIS YEAR

Mediamax news agency
24 May 07

Yerevan, 24 May: The OSCE Minsk Group’s Russian co-chairman Yuriy
Merzlyakov has said in Yerevan that if the forthcoming meeting
between Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents "is successful, the
number of unsettled issues concerning the Karabakh settlement will
be practically close to zero".

Merzlyakov said this during a joint news conference with OSCE Minsk
Group’s French co-chairman Bernard Fassier today.

The Russian mediator noted that the co-chairmen held two rounds
of negotiations in Yerevan on 23 May with Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan. They also met President Robert Kocharyan and Prime Minister
Serzh Sargsyan. As a result of the meetings, Armenia has given its
consent to a meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in
St Petersburg on 10 June on the sidelines of an unofficial CIS summit.

"We noted certain progress during meetings in Yerevan and hope
to consolidate it in Baku," Merzlyakov said. He said that if the
Kocharyan-Aliyev meeting on 10 June is successful, "most likely one
more meeting will be necessary at a presidential level in order to
confirm the basic principles of the settlement".

The mediators stressed that not the preparation of a peace agreement
but the basic principles of the settlement were being negotiated at
the current stage. The co-chairmen refrained from specifying a date
when the conflict might be settled. They said that an agreement on
the basic principles might be reached by the end of this year, but
a peace agreement would not be signed.

Fassier said that presidential election would be held in Armenia
and Azerbaijan in 2008, and "if these principles are not defined by
the end of this year, then there is a great possibility that after
the elections we will have to resume the [peace] process from zero,
as it has happened before."

Merzlyakov added the proposals that the mediators had submitted during
the last meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in
Belgrade "were about details, not about the basic principles". The
sides have three to four unsettled issues, the Russian diplomat said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress