BAKU’S KARABAKH STATEMENTS INAPPROPRIATE – ARMENIA

Interfax
June 1 2009
Russia

Yerevan claims Azerbaijan again made statements damaging the talks
on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ahead of the
Azeri-Armenian summit due in June.

Obviously, these statements go beyond the limits of diplomatic
etiquette and elementary tact, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister
Shavarsh Kocharian said, according to the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

It looks like Azerbaijan’s statements, made ahead of each meeting
and damaging talks that have not even taken place, is becoming
a tradition. Strangely enough, this also happens after the talks,
when Baku’s commentaries differ almost always not only from Armenia’s
assessment, but also from the opinion of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group, he said.

The question arises: What goal is Azerbaijan pursuing – to hold talks,
or to try to foil them, he said.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev earlier said that the settlement of
the Karabakh conflicts was delayed due to Armenia’s non-constructive
position, and that Azerbaijan will not depart from its fair position
of principle.

Aliyev made a point, according to the Azeri mass media, that
neither today, nor in a 100 years’ time will Karabakh be granted
independence. Armenia is already an independent state, and the
Armenian people went through self-determination once. The state of
Azerbaijan and the Azeri people will never allow a second Armenian
state to emerge on the Azeri soil, Aliyev was quoted as saying.

The next meeting between Armenian and Azeri presidents Serzh Sargsyan
and Ilham Aliyev will take place in June at an economic forum in
St. Petersburg.