KARABAKH MEDIATORS HOLD MORE TALKS IN YEREVAN, BAKU
By Ruben Meloyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 29 2007
International mediators continued to shuttle between Armenia and
Azerbaijan at the weekend in hopes of brokering what a senior
U.S. diplomat described as a "gentlemen’s agreement" on the main
principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s settlement. The American,
French and Russian co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group arrived in
Yerevan and held fresh talks with President Robert Kocharian and
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian on Saturday before heading back to
Baku. They already visited the two capitals earlier last week. Speaking
to RFE/RL, the group’s U.S. co-chair, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Matthew Bryza, said the mediators remain in the conflict zone
to try to "build on some positive momentum." He said they will convey
to Armenian leaders an "important message" from Baku but refused
to disclose it. Bryza again insisted that Armenia and Azerbaijan
may still cut a framework peace deal before their presidential
elections due next year. "We can’t exclude the possibility that
we will reach a gentlemen’s agreement," he said. "But that would
be an oral statement. We are not talking about a written agreement
in the immediate future." Kocharian said earlier this month that no
Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements are likely to be reached before the
2008 elections. As always, his office did not release any details of
his talks with the mediating troika. "I can’t say there is anything
new at this point," Vladimir Karapetian, the Armenian Foreign
Ministry spokesman, told RFE/RL. "The process is continuing and we
expect that it will be possible to bring our positions closer to each
other." Official Azerbaijani sources said nothing about the mediators’
weekend talks with President Ilham Aliev and Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov. Mammadyarov was quoted by Azerbaijani media as saying
on Monday that the parties still disagree on some of the principles
of a Karabakh settlement proposed by the Minsk Group.
"The co-chairs believe that they will succeed in finding common ground
between the parties," he said. Baku and Yerevan are understood to
have already accepted the main points of the Minsk Group’s existing
peace plan. It calls for a gradual resolution of the conflict would
enable Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population to decide the
disputed region’s status in a referendum years after the liberation
of surrounding Azerbaijani territories.
Diplomatic sources privy to the negotiating process say the parties
still disagree on practical modalities of the proposed referendum as
well as the timetable for Armenian withdrawal from those territories.
"We are so very close on just a few remaining technical issues,"
Bryza told RFE/RL in a separate interview last Wednesday. "It would
be a shame if we didn’t reach some sort of a gentlemen’s agreement
on this framework that’s on the table."