ANS TV, Azerbaijan
May 22 2009
Azeri ruling party official slams French mediator in Karabakh talks
A senior member of Azerbaijan’s ruling party has criticised a French
mediator for his comments that Turkey should not link its
normalisation talks with Armenia to the settlement of the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict.
"I think that this is not in conformity with the functions or mission
of a mediator," Ali Ahmadov, executive secretary of the New Azerbaijan
Party, said in parliament on 22 May. In comments broadcast on ANS
television, Ahmadov urged international mediators "to give up such
habits".
Bernard Fassier, the French co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group which
has been tasked with mediating a peaceful resolution to the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, had said that the Turkish-Armenian
talks should not be connected with the efforts to resolve the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict.
"Normalisation of Turkish-Armenian relations and the settlement of the
Nagornyy-Karabakh dispute are two separate processes which should
continue in parallel but along their own paths," the French embassy in
Ankara said in a statement after a visit there by Bernard Fassier,
Reuters reported.
Ahmadov said the Azerbaijani people and president believed that the
two issues were interconnected and therefore international mediators
should respect this view. The other two co-chairs of the Minsk Group
represent Russia and the USA.
The statement comes as some senior officials in Baku openly accuse the
West of taking a pro-Armenian stance in the resolution of the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict.