AZERI OFFICIAL TALKS OF "NEW PAGE" IN N.-KARABAKH PROCESS

Interfax
Nov 25 2008
Russia

A declaration on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process issued at a
Russian-brokered Azeri-Armenian summit "has undoubtedly opened a new
page in the negotiation," said Fuad Akhundov, a senior member of the
Azeri president’s staff.

The declaration, signed at the meeting by the Azeri, Armenian and
Russian presidents, Ilham Aliyev, Serzh Sargsyan and Dmitry Medvedev,
"has not solved all the problems, nor could it have done, but it
has undoubtedly opened a new page in the negotiation process and has
laid an important basis for moving ahead in the settlement of this
conflict," Akhundov, head of the public and political section of the
president’s office, told Interfax.

One important point is that the declaration is the first document to
have been signed by the presidents of the three countries since the
1994 ceasefire, Akhundov said.

Another is that the signatories reaffirm they are loyal to fundamental
principles and standards of international law, he said.

A third important point stressed by Akhundov is that economic relations
between Azerbaijan and Armenia are impossible before the conflict
is settled.

"Before that, an opinion was expressed that the resumption by
Azerbaijan of trade and economic cooperation with Armenia would be able
to speed up the peace process. It is the position of Baku that takes
the upper hand in the declaration, the position that the settlement
of the conflict is an a priori objective and that only after that may
economic and transportation links and trade be established between
Azerbaijan and Armenia," Akhundov said.

Azerbaijan, Akhundov said, does not reject the self-determination
principle but follows the alleged international legal principle that
the right to self-determination may only be exercised if it does not
endanger the territorial integrity of a state.