AZERBAIJANI REPRESENTATIVE OF INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: "I DID NOT HEAR BERNARD FASSIER PRAISE ARMENIAN FIGHTERS DURING HIS SPEECH IN YEREVAN"

APA
March 16 2010
Azerbaijan

Baku. Lachin Sultanova – APA. "I did not personally hear Bernard
Fassier praise Armenian fighters," Azerbaijani representative of the
International Crisis Group (ICG) Tabib Huseynov, who attended Rose-Roth
seminar of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Yerevan, told APA.

He said Bernard Fassier wanted to make speech in English, but the
French participants demanded him to speak his native language.

"When Fassier began to speak French, the translator was not ready
and translated the text into English badly. I personally did not hear
Bernard Fassier say these words. On the contrary, there were points
in his speech that coincided with Azerbaijan’s official position.

Especially, he touched on return of the Azerbaijanis to Nagorno
Karabakh, situation that may follow the return of the Azerbaijanis,
consideration of the position of the Nagorno Karabakh’s Azerbaijanis
during the determination of the final status of Nagorno Karabakh,"
he said.

Tabib Huseynov also touched on his speech in the seminar.

"The main essence of my speech was that there already is too positive
international atmosphere for the solution to Nagorno Karabakh problem.

The co-chairs of Minsk Group, including Russia cooperate with one
another well and assist the sides to achieve a progress basing on the
basic principles. The positions of Russia and the West coincide more
in Nagorno Karabakh issue, than in Georgia’s problems. The essence
of my speech was that we should not lose this opportunity. On the
other hand, the main problem is inside the societies and particularly
in the Armenian society. They are less inclined to accept the basic
principles than Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani officials stated that they
accepted the Madrid proposals. I tried to touch on these points in
my speech. I said what we can do so that the societies realize that
these principles do not contradict their main interests, the problem
can indeed be solved peacefully," he said.