Mediamax, Armenia
May 7 2009

US mediator reports "considerable progress" after Armenian, Azeri
leaders meet

Yerevan, 7 May: The US co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Matthew
Bryza announced today in Prague an "important" and "essential"
progress in the negotiations process when summing up the meeting of
the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

As Mediamax correspondent reports from Prague, the mediators met
journalists following a meeting between the presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan which took place at the residence of the US ambassador and
lasted two and a half hours.

"Presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan had constructive talks. They have
managed to narrow down the number of disagreements on basic principles
of settlement [of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict] and to reach general
agreement on basic ideas proposed by the mediators with regards to
these principles." Matthew Bryza said.

The US diplomat said that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
instructed the ministers of foreign affairs of their countries to
continue talks with the mediators in the coming weeks and "to finalize
the key concepts in the framework of basic principles". According to
Matthew Bryza, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan "have for the
first time agreed on the basic principles around these principles" and
this allows to state the existence of "serious and considerable
progress" in the peace process.

Russian mediator Yuriy Merzlyakov said that "there is a principal
agreement to hold the next meeting of the presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan in St Petersburg in the beginning of June." He said that in
order to get prepared for the meeting, the co-chairmen of the OSCE
Minsk Group will visit the region while French co-chairman Bernard
Fassier said that mediators have "lots of work" to do to prepare the
meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders.

Answering a question about the possible influence of Baku’s negative
attitude towards the attempts to normalize Armenian-Turkish relations
on the peace process, Matthew Bryza said that "these two processes
develop in parallel and at different speeds".

"Progress in one of the processes may encourage progress in
another. However, we are dealing with two different processes", the
American mediator said.