AZERI OFFICIAL SAYS NO AGREEMENT ON MAJOR POINTS IN KARABAKH TALKS

Azad Azarbaycan TV
October 6, 2008 Monday
Azerbaijan

[Presenter] Making public the points in the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict
that have not been agreed yet is, in general, to the detriment of
the negotiations, the head of the foreign relations department at the
presidential administration, Novruz Mammadov, has said in an interview
with Trend news agency commenting on a statement by Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov.

[Correspondent over archive footage] The issues of principle that
have not yet been agreed in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict are
the status of Nagornyy Karabakh and the Lacin corridor, as well as
the deployment of peacekeeping forces.

In response to the statement of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
saying that a number of issues have been agreed in the settlement
of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, Novruz Mammadov, the head of the
foreign relations department at the presidential administration,
has said that there are still disagreements between Azerbaijan and
Armenia in the issues of principle. He said that since there is no
agreement between the sides on some major issues, provisions agreed
earlier cannot be accepted fully today. Quote, since the statement
was made by Sergey Lavrov, it has caused a wide reaction. But the
sides made these kinds of statements before as well. They also
caused reaction at the time. The thing is that since the conflict
can be resolved step by step, both the parties and the [OSCE Minsk
Group] co-chairmen are going through a difficult period, which is
natural. However, major issues have not been agreed upon, unquote.

The department head believes that agreement should be reached on a
number of important issues so that provisions agreed previously could
remain in force.