Interfax, Russia
July 10 2009

ALIYEV AGREES TO MEET WITH SARGSYAN IN MOSCOW – DIPLOMAT

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has agreed to meet with his Armenian
counterpart Serzh Sargsyan in Moscow on July 17, Yury Merzlyakov,
Russia’s co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, told a briefing on
Friday.

"We hope that this meeting will allow us to reach the last lap [of the
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict]," Merzlyakov said.

"We continued to discuss this small number of still unresolved aspects
in the basic principles both in Baku and Yerevan," the Russian
diplomat said.

The co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group are very pleased with the
results of their meetings with the Azeri and Armenian presidents,
Merzlyakov said.

"Our conversation with them was substantial and constructive. We
sensed that they both are committed to achieving results at their
upcoming meeting," he added.

"We hope that on July 17, the presidents will be able to finalize this
stage and to simultaneously begin discussing a new topic, which, until
recently, we addressed only in general. I hope that we will debate
this issue more profoundly in the future," said the Minsk Group’s
French co-chairman Bernard Fassier.

"We are hopeful that the presidents will approve the basic settlement
principles before the end of the year, which will be a
breakthrough. Starting from next year, this breakthrough will open up
opportunities to transform these principles into a fundamental
agreement," the French diplomat said.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Azeri community could also be allowed to
join these negotiations, Merzlyakov said.

"If the Azeri party wants to include representatives of the Azeri
community of Nagorno-Karabakh in its delegation, it is possible. Talks
between the presidents are in progress today, but it is not yet clear
at what stage Nagorno-Karabakh should join the talks in order to be
able to help formulate a part of an agreement dealing with this
territory," he said.

It could be possible to combine the Helsinki Final Act’s three
principles, which suggest: abandoning threats to use force, observing
territorial integrity and giving a right to self-determination to the
local population, the OSCE Minsk Group’s U.S. co-chairman Matthew
Bryza said, adding that this task would be difficult.

These principles could be combined by striking a balance between them,
which matches the task of finding mutually acceptable ideas in the
future, Bryza said.

The Azeri and Armenian leaders do not plan to sign any document at the
July 17 meeting, Merzlyakov said.

"But it does not mean that it [document] could not be signed there,"
the Russian diplomat said.

No one planned to sign the Moscow Declaration, but the document was
signed, he said.

Merzlyakov, however, declined to say in what form the basic settlement
principles could be adopted by the Azeri and Armenian presidents.