ARMENIAN SIDE ASSESSES RESULTS OF ZURICH MEETING AS CONSTRUCTIVE AND POSITIVE

Noyan Tapan

Jan 29, 2009

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, NOYAN TAPAN. A meeting of the Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan and the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took place
at the Radisson Hotel in Zurich on January 28.

The Zurich meeting of the negotiation process on the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement was the third one between S. Sargsyan
and I. Aliyev. It started with the participation of the Foreign
Ministers of the two countries Edward Nalandian and Elmar Mamedyarov,
the Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov, Bernard
Fassier and Matthew Bryza, and the Personal Representative of the
OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.

Then the two presidents continued negotiations in the tete-a-tete
format.

After a one-hour tete-a-tete talk, the negotiations continued in an
enlarged format.

The Armenian side assessed the results of the Zurich meeting as
constructive and positive. During the meeting the sides presented
their opinions on the current stage of the negotiation process. As a
result of the negotiations, the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents
instructed the foreign ministers to continue the negotiation process in
cooperation with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. The presidents
expressed a desire that the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group will
proceed with work on coordination of the approaches of the sides. An
agreement on the forthcoming regional visit of the co-chairs of the
OSCE Minsk Group was reached.

According to the RA presidential press service, after the negotiations
Serzh Sargsyan left for Davos to attend the opening ceremony of the
World Economic Forum.