PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV MEETS PRESIDENTS OF ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN

Itar-Tass
25.01.2010, 14.54

KRASNAYA POLYANA, January 25 (Itar-Tass) – President Dmitry Medvedev
has met the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan – Serzh Sargsyan and
Ilkham Aliyev, on Monday to discuss the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh
settlement, the Kremlin press service said.

It is a fifth meeting in succession held in such a format. The first
one took place in Barvikha in the Moscow countryside on November
2, 2008. The second meeting was held in St. Petersburg on June 4,
2009 in the framework of the St.Petersburg Economic Forum. The three
presidents met third time to discuss this problem in Moscow on July 18,
2009 when they attended a horse race competition for the Presidential
prize. The previous meeting was held in Chisinau on October 9, 2009
in the framework of the CIS summit.

"Russia’s principle position on the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh
settlement is to refrain from imposing any recipes of settlement
on participants in the conflict from outside, proceeding from the
assumption that the main responsibility for ultimate settlement rests
with the people of Armenia and Azerbaijan themselves," the Kremlin
press service said earlier.

Russia is ready to accept a variant of settlement that suits all the
parties concerned; Russia is also prepared to act as a guarantor of
settlement in case an agreement on a compromise is reached, the press
service said. The Russian side believes in viability of settlement
that will enable to return stability and calm to the Caucasus and help
maintain the historically formed balance of forces there in the post-
crisis period, the Kremlin press service said.

The negotiations have been conduced under the auspices of the
co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group who coordinated their positions.

Since 1997 Russia, the United State and France have been co-chairmen of
the Minsk Group. The OSCE Minsk Group established in 1992 incorporates
12 countries – Russia, the United States, Finland, France, Belarus,
Germany, Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Greece, Kazakhstan and Lithuania.