AZERBAIJANI EXPERT SEES PREREQUISITES FOR SETTLEMENT OF KARABAKH PROBLEM THIS YEAR

Noyan Tapan
Jan 16 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, NOYAN TAPAN. There are real grounds for
registering progress in settlement of the Karabakh problem in 2008,
Azerbaijani expert, director of the "Third Opinion" Information
Analytical Agency (Baku) Rauf Rajabov expressed an opinion during a
talk with NT correspondent.

According to him, the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev’s recent
statement that there will be a breakthrough in this issue this year
is a noteworthy one. The statement of the RA prime minister Serge
Sargsian – one of the most likely candidates for the post of the
Armenian president, that Armenia is in favor of Turkey’s joining the
European Union is not an accidental one either. Turkey is a strategic
partner of Azerbaijan, and improvement of relations between Armenia
and Turkey, according to R. Rajabov, will have a positive impact on
relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

R. Rajabov considered as wrong the opinion that Azerbaijan supports
military solution of the conflict. In his words, the fact that
Azerbaijan initiated discussions of the problem in the UN shows that
it favors the problem’s solution from the viewpoint of international
law. As for belligerent statements made in Azerbaijan, R. Rajabov said
that these statements have not been made by the direct participants
of negotiations on solution of the Karabakh problem: the country’s
president, his special representative and the foreign minister who
state that Azerbaijan is in support of the Prague process.