Interfax, Russia
Dec 25 2009
Azeri leader not satisfied with pace of Karabakh settlement process
MOSCOW Dec 25
The year 2009 was not successful for the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement
process, said Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, adding that
negotiations should not become permanent.
"I would describe this year as positive in terms of the settlement but
less positive than it could have been," Aliyev said in an interview
with the Vesti-24 television channel on Thursday.
"There were hopes that we would manage to resolve this issue in 2009,
at least agree on the basic principles. But they were not justified,
and it was not our fault," the Azeri president said.
"There is certain optimism for 2010, because Nagorno-Karabakh has
become one of the central issues on the international agenda, with
many those, who might not have fully understood this, now being clear
that without resolving the Armenian-Azeri conflict no other regional
problems can be resolved," he said.
"We hope to be able to agree upon the key provisions in 2010, but we
are categorically against this turning into a permanent negotiating
process," Aliyev said.
Talks have continued since 1992, when the OSCE set up the Minsk Group.
A cease-fire agreement was signed in 1994. "Fifteen years have passed,
there is some progress but no result, this is why we cannot allow this
process to turn into a frozen one, precisely in this final sense of
this word," the Azeri president said.