ARMENIAN PRES AGREES TO MEET AZERI PRES IN ST PETERSBURG
ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
May 24, 2007 Thursday 02:43 AM EST
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan has agreed to meet with his
Azerbaijani counterpart Ilkham Alieyev within the framework of a CIS
summit in St. Petersburg on June 10.
This is the main result of a visit of the co-chairmen of the Minsk
Group on Nagorno-Karabakh to Yerevan, a mediator from Russia Yuri
Merzlyakov said here on Thursday. The co-chairmen hope that they will
also get in Baku the Azerbaijani president’ s consent for the meeting.
According to Merzlyakov, on Wednesday, the co-chairmen continued talks
in Yerevan with the Armenian leadership on coordinating a working
document on basic principles of Karabakh settlement proposed by them.
"We are working on basic principles of settlement – the main carrying
structure of a future peace agreement," the diplomat said.
According to him, "if they are coordinated, a basis for further work
on the text of a peace agreement with the participation of experts
will created." The co-chairmen hope that this document "will be fair,
balanced and compromise."
"If a meeting in St. Petersburg is a success, it is not ruled out
that one more meeting will be needed to coordinate basic principles of
settlement," Merzlyakov said. As he stressed, talks between the foreign
ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are mainly focused on details,
while the co-chairmen expect something more, something global from
the presidents.
"The circle of uncoordinated issues is narrowing, elements of
only three or four issues remain to be uncoordinated," the Russian
representative said.