ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
May 25, 2007 Friday 06:38 PM EST

Azerbaijan’s president to meet with Armenian counterpart June 9

Azerbaijan’s President Ilkham Aliyev has agreed to meet with his
Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian on the sidelines of the
informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg on June 9, the French
co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group for Nagorno-Karabakh, Bernard
Fasier, told a news conference in Baku on Friday.

“This is good news, but we are not expecting this meeting by the
presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia will resolve all problems,” the
diplomat said, adding though that he did not rule out some favorable
shifts in the settlement process after the Aliyev-Kocharian
encounter.

“The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel
Moratinos will visit the region to make preparations for the
meeting,” Facier said.

According to diplomatic sources in Baku the visit is due on June 4.
The Russian, US and French co-chairmen of the Minsk Group will visit
Baku and Yerevan on June 6-7.

About the results of the just-ended round of political consultations
in Baku on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict the
Russian co-chairman, Yuri Merzlyakov, said “there were very
meaningful discussions with President Ilkham Aliyev and Foreign
Minister Elmar Mamedyarov.”

According to the Russian official the co-chairmen discussed once
again the basic principles of a peace settlement the two parties
remain divided over.

“Such questions are few, but the talks were confidential and we
shall not disclose the contents,” he said.

The Russian diplomat also said the discussion revolved around the
seven occupied districts of Azerbaijan, including the Lachin
district, which links Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The question of the Lachin corridor remains unresolved, too,” he
said.

Facier said the co-chairmen were trying to provide honest and
reliable assistance to the conflicting parties in efforts to achieve
a lasting and balanced peace settlement on the basis of three
principles of international law – the non-use of force or of threats
of using force against other countries, the observance of countries’
territorial integrity and the right of each nationality to
self-determination.

“Achieving a combination of these three principles constitutes the
main difficulty in settling the Karabakh conflict,” the French
diplomat said.

The co-chairmen said the model of Kosovo could not be used for
Nagorno-Karabakh, because the former conflict was a purely internal
one, and the latter, both an internal one and a conflict between two
countries.