ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
June 9, 2007 Saturday 07:51 AM EST

Armenia, Azerbaijan presidents to meet at CIS summit in Pete

ST. PETERSBURG, June 9

The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, Robert Kocharyan and Ilham
Aliyev, will meet on the sidelines of the informal CIS summit in St.
Petersburg on Sunday.

The Armenian president’s press service said the presidents “will try
to move forward in settlement of the Karabakh conflict”.

Co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh representing
Russia, France and the US will attend the meeting.

The Armenian and Azerbaijni presidents will have on the negotiating
table frame principles of settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
that was stopped by a ceasefire in May 1994.

The ceasefire regime was established with mediation of Russia and the
CIS Inter-parliamentary Assembly. The sides observed the ceasefire
regime without any interference by any third country.

Despite optimistic statements by the Minsk Group’s co-chairmen, the
situation with settlement is not simple.

US co-chairman Mathew Briza said a circle of difference between
Armenia and Azerbaijan is narrowing, but they still remain.

OSCE chairman-in-office, Spanish Foreign Minster Miguel Angel
Moratinos visited Yerevan on Tuesday.

“Armenia does not see an alternative and a more effective format for
settlement of the Karabakh conflict than the OSCE and its Minsk
Group,” the Armenia president said at his meeting with Moratinos.

Moratinos confirmed the OSCE’s readiness to assist a peaceful
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He expects the meeting of the Armenian an Azerbaijani president s in
St. Petersburg to yield positive results.

The main thing is to encourage the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides in
moving towards settlement of the conflict. It is necessary that both
sides show “political will”, Moratinos said.

In the opinion of the Armenian side, a main problem of settlement is
the “right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to
self-determination”.

“Without confirmation of that it is impossible to talk about any
other questions” of settlement, Armenian Foreign Ministry Vartan
Oskanyan said.

The president of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh republic, Arkady
Gukasyan, said that the “forthcoming meeting of the Armenian and
Azerbaijani presidents is unlikely to have a fateful importance”.

“The current format of the negotiations of Armenia and Azerbaijan is
illogical, and it is not clear why Nagorno-Karabakh does not
participate in the negotiations at which the fate of the people of
Nagorno-Karabakh is decided,” he said.

Gukasyan stressed that the “principled position of Nagorno-Karabakh
is that it will never agree to be within Azerbaijan and will never
refuse the aspiration to become independent”.