CHAIRMAN OF PACE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NAGORNO KARABAKH: I MAY BE IN AZERBAIJAN ON 9 NOVEMBER

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 4 2007

"I am anxious to see the work of my committee continue"

Lord Russell-Johnston interviewed by APA Europe bureau

– Did your meeting with speaker Asadov take place today? What was
discussed and what are outcomes of this meeting?

– Specific outcome. I explained to him that I was anxious to see the
work of my committee continue. That it was necessary to have some
guarantees of cooperation from both countries. And consequently I was
intending at least to write both to President Aliyev and president
Kocharian, and possibly also to see them both, to visit them both.

And if so happens that I may be in Baku on 9 November, but that is
not yet confirmed. That might be an occasion on which that might be
possible depending of course on the president’s schedule. I said to
speaker Asadov that I regretted the fact that the visits that have
been planed both by my committee and also by the cultural committee
had been cancel at a short notice. But I hope that the situation
could be reasonably resolved.

– We also heard that there was a meeting yesterday in the subcommittee
between the heads of the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations. So
you met yesterday. And apparently the Armenia is interested in
issues that were discussed at this meeting, And also specifically
the Azerbaijani delegation is proposing to change the format of these
visits and meetings, meaning to go to the Nagorno Karabakh through the
Azerbaijani territory. If that at all could be called as a change of
the format of the work of the committee. What can you say about this?

– Well, it did represent a change of the format. As the understanding
was both by myself and also by Mr O’Hara at the cultural committee
that there would be an interview in Yerevan. And that was changed
very suddenly and quickly. And that was not a great problem for me,
because the meeting was the next week. But for Mr O’Hara it meant
everything be changed of the week-end with one-day notice. And that
was not really good.

– Would these format changes prevent the visit?

– As I said before I do not regard my committee as being concerned
to mediate on Nagorno Karabakh. The idea was that we would try and
improve contact and dialog particularly in the first place between
Azeri and Armenian parliamentarians; possibly hold seminars in Baku
and Yerevan. And to try to improve the relationship, but not, I mean
… The Nagorno Karabakh conflict will only in the end solved by
Kocharian and Aliyev.

– The last question. There will be a meeting of the PACE’s monitoring
committee on frozen conflicts in November in Berlin. We assume that
you were invited and if so, the question is as follows: Initially the
idea was to have Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations to discuss the
things, but yesterday apparently the Armenian delegation at the meeting
with PACE president proposed to have also the representatives of the
Armenian community of Nagarno Karabakh. So what do you think about it?

– I don’t want to cover that as I know nothing about it. But if I
may ask a couple of things: the Council of Europe said to me apart
from being very anxious to see a resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict and in particular of the occupied territories with the
refugees. They are also concerned naturally about internal policies in
both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Azerbaijan is fortunate in having huge
economic growth. That should not lead it to neglect basic democratic
questions. Our main concern is about the political prisoners, some
of them are very old and sick. And also journalistic freedom. There
were seven journalists imprisoned recently. I just add that as a
postscript.