OSKANIAN MEETS KARABAKH MEDIATORS
By Gevorg Stamboltsian in Prague

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Sept 4 2007

International mediators will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan early next
week in yet another attempt to salvage the Nagorno-Karabakh peace
process, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said after meeting them in
Brussels on Tuesday.

"We simply talked about how the existing disagreements can be
overcome," he told RFE/RL from the Belgian capital. "But there are
no concrete agreements. The only hope is that during their visit to
the region the mediators will reach some agreements with the leaders
[of Armenia and Azerbaijan.]"

The U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group held
separate talks in Brussels with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov on Monday. No details of the talks were reported.

The co-chairs have been making last-ditch attempts to broker a
framework peace agreement on Karabakh since the failure of the most
recent meeting between Presidents Robert Kocharian and Ilham Aliev.

Meeting in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg in early June, the
two leaders all but dashed hopes for the signing of such an agreement
before the start of campaigning for presidential elections due in
both Armenia and Azerbaijan next year.

Visiting Yerevan in early August, the chief U.S. Karabakh negotiator,
Matthew Bryza, effectively admitted that the conflicting parties are
unlikely to cut unpopular peace deals in the coming months. Still,
he stated a few days later that Aliev and Kocharian could hold another
potentially decisive meeting later this year.

According to Oskanian, the Armenian side will agree to such a meeting
only if the mediators manage to bring the parties’ positions closer
to each other during their trip to Yerevan and Baku. "Our president
has never avoided such meetings," he said. "But we don’t want to hold
a meeting for the sake of a meeting."

"If the mediators see, especially after their visit to Azerbaijan,
a convergence of positions on unsettled issues, of course we will
have to take that opportunity," he added.

In Oskanian’s words, further progress in the peace process hinges on
unspecified "courageous steps by Azerbaijan towards compromise." The
Azerbaijani side has taken no such steps since the Saint Petersburg
summit, he said.

Azerbaijani leaders have blamed Armenia for the summit’s collapse,
pointing to its insistence on upholding the Karabakh Armenians’
right to self-determination. Aliev repeated on Tuesday that Baku will
never recognize Karabakh’s secession from Azerbaijan. He also renewed
threats to win back the disputed territory by force.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress