NALBANDIAN: AZERBAIJAN MISINTERPRETS ALL PROVISIONS OF MOSCOW DECLARATION
PanARMENIAN.Net
05.12.2008 14:54 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian informed
the OSCE Ministerial Council on the latest developments of the Nagorno
Karabakh peace process for which OSCE has an important mediation role
through the dedicated effort of the three Minsk Group Co-Chairs.
"The negotiations on Nagorno Karabakh settlement received a new
impetus at the Moscow meeting initiated by President of the Russian
Federation in his capacity as a Head of Co-Chair state and the
signing by Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia of the Moscow
Declaration. The Co-Chairs supported and approved the Declaration,
and we believed that it would intensify the peace process," Minister
Nalbandian said in his address.
"However, Azerbaijan misinterprets all the provisions of the
Declaration going as far as stating, in particular, that the peaceful
settlement does not exclude use of force. I wonder if there is
any other state here, around this table, which could have such
interpretation of the very clear notion of the ‘peaceful political
settlement.’
"The other vivid example of the misinterpretation of the declaration
and the whole process of negotiations, was the provocative non-paper
distorting the whole sense of the peace talks circulated yesterday
by Azerbaijani delegation, which I don’t even want to comment.
"Despite this, we would want to hope that we will be able to maintain
the spirit and the positive momentum of the Moscow declaration and
will advance towards the resolution of the conflict. This was also
the vision of the declaration made yesterday by the three Co-Chair
countries in framework of our Ministerial meeting," the Minister said.
Foreign Ministers of France, Russia, and the United States – the
Co-Chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group – issued a joint declaration
of the on Nagorno Karabakh conflict, which says:
"We, the Foreign Ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group’s Co-Chair countries
– France, Russia, and the United States – call on the parties to the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict to build on the positive momentum established
during the meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in
Moscow on November 2, 2008. The Moscow Declaration signed that same
day opened a new and promising phase in our shared endeavor to expand
peace in the South Caucasus. In that declaration, the Presidents
reaffirm their commitment to advancing a peaceful settlement of the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict in the framework of the Basic Principles
developed by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs in collaboration with the
leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the basis of their proposals
advanced last year in Madrid.
We call on the parties to work with the Co-Chairs to finalize the Basic
Principles in coming months, and then begin drafting a comprehensive
peace settlement as outlined by those agreed principles. In keeping
with the Moscow Declaration, we call on the parties to work with
the Co-Chairs to develop confidence-building measures, beginning
with pulling back snipers from the Line of Contact to save lives of
innocent civilians and soldiers as our mediators already proposed to
the sides at the highest level during the last visit mid November. It
is urgent for the parties to work with each other, the Co-Chairs,
and the Personal Representative of the Chairman in Office to stabilize
the ceasefire through this and other measures. We reiterate our firm
view that there is no military solution to the conflict and call on
the parties to recommit to a peaceful resolution."