ANS TV, Azerbiajan
Oct 11 2007

Azeri official says no progress in Karabakh talks due to Armenia’
position

[Presenter] The Nagornyy Karabakh conflict will not be resolved
before the presidential election to be held in Armenia next year.
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan said this after his meeting with
President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels.
He said that the current stage of the [Nagornyy Karabakh peace] talks
does not make it possible to achieve a fundamental settlement until
the election is held. Jose Manuel Barroso called on the parties to
the conflict to continue talks, [Russian news agency] RIA Novosti
reported.

The Azerbaijani side’s reaction to the statement by Robert Kocharyan
was prompt. Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Xazar Ibrahim has
said that Armenia always issues these kinds of statements at
important moments.

[Ibrahim] This should only be assessed as a continuation by Armenians
officials of avoiding expressing their will. The reason [why I say
this] is that at very important moments they have repeatedly avoided
responsibility and did not express their will [but] made statements
like this and after that we, in practice, cannot move on with the
talks. As the most recent example we can cite the meeting in St
Petersburg [between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on 9
June]. Their statements sometimes simply do not correspond to their
steps or, on the contrary, their steps differ from what they say.
Only and only when Armenia’s has a realistic and constructive
position can we talk about progress [in peace talks]. For its part,
Azerbaijan has taken all steps it can, and the co-chairmen [of the
OSCE Minsk Group which mediates a solution to the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict between the two countries], for their part, have given all
proposals [on conflict resolution] they can.