AZG Armenian Daily #222, 01/12/2007

Karabakh Conflict

WARLIKE ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE DANGEROUS FOR THE AZERBAIJANI PEOPLE

On November 29, after the meeting of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, also
Foreign Ministers of France and Russia and the representative of OSCE
Executive Chairman with the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and
Azerbaijan, in answer to Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov’s
announcements Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian mentioned,
that independent of the fact who does warlike announcements, similar
announcements are not useful and impede the negotiation process, make
different moods among people and the possibility of compromise becomes
less.

"It’s more dangerous for Azerbaijani people, as they give some hopes
to their people", said Mr. Oskanian and added that from the point of
negotiation process the level of November 29 meeting is higher taking
into account the participation of the Co-chair countries’ Foreign
Ministers.

"It testifies that they have hopes connected with the negotiation
process and consider that the document on the table is the only way to
the settlement of the conflict".

There are issues that are not settled yet. "And the aim of today’s
meeting is to present the viewpoints of the Co-chair countries on
not-settled issues for the discussions of the sides.

What about the announcement of Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov on the
issue of not discussing NKR status, Oskanian mentioned that the issue
of the status is one of the pivotal issues and there is an agreement
to let the people of NKR for self-determination. "If Mammadyarov means
that the issue is not discussed as everybody agree with the
self-determination of NKR people, in that case the issue is solved. I
can say that there are not-settled issues and the discussions of them
continue. Today they became more concrete. Let’s wait and see what
the answers of the sides are".

"We should do everything to come to the settlement of the issue taking
into account today’s interesting and balanced document. There are not
many not-settled issues, but to say "one or two" is not right. The
principle is one – if there is no agreement of all the issues, we
can’t say that there is an agreement on the issue. It is an OSCE
principle that we apply to our negotiations", mentioned Mr. Oskanian.

By Agavni Haroutiunian, Madrid, translated by L.H.