US MEDIATOR OPTIMISTIC ON KARABAKH PEACE TALKS BETWEEN AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA

Turan
April 20 2009
Azerbaijan

The basic principles of the Karabakh settlement provide for
defining frameworks of the final resolution of the problem, US
co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Matthew Bryza told BBC in an
interview. These principles provide for the return of territories,
the return of displaced persons to their native lands, ensuring
of mechanism of both ethnic groups’ safe living in the region. All
these will create fair and balanced conditions for moving forward the
development of mechanisms of defining a "political status of disputed
territories". Bryza said that there were still specific points which
should be resolved that in turn would make it possible to sum up the
basic principles of the settlement.

He did not specify the content of the issues that need to be agreed
on. But he said that the presidents [of Armenia and Azerbaijan] should
make brave steps to reach final agreements. "But I’m convinced that
they are capable of doing that, and the senior officials of my country
are ready to help the presidents to overcome these difficulties in
months to come," Bryza said.

As for the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, he said that the
normalization of relations between Ankara and Yerevan may favour the
evolution of Armenia’s opinion that could help the settlement of the
Karabakh conflict.

Commenting on [President] Aliyev’s Moscow visit, Bryza said that one
should only welcome good relations between Baku and Moscow, and that
[good relations between Azerbaijan and Russia] may promote the Karabakh
settlement process.

He voiced optimism that there might be a breakthrough in the Karabakh
settlement process in the near future. He said that might be expected
at the next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents.