BAKU, YEREVAN BICKER OVER TALKS PROCESS

news.az
March 18 2010
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry Baku has rejected Armenian accusations
that it is distorting the essence of the negotiations on the Karabakh
conflict.

‘The same document has been submitted to both sides and there can
be no talk of errors,’ Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Elkhan Polukhov
said yesterday.

He was responding to remarks by Armenian Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandian at a meeting with the OSCE mediators in Paris on 16 March.

Nalbandian told the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, ‘The Azerbaijani side
gives wrong information to the public about the meaning and content
of the negotiations.’

‘Minister Elmar Mammadyarov openly declared that the proposed
written document had been accepted by the Azerbaijani side with some
exceptions,’ Polukhov said.

He went on to say that if Armenia accepted the written document,
known as the updated Madrid proposals, it should say so openly.

Commenting on Nalbandian’s remarks that resolution of the conflict
would be impossible without the involvement of the community
of Nagorno-Karabakh in the talks process, Polukhov said that
Azerbaijan did not exclude the participation of both communities of
Nagorno-Karabakh in the negotiating process at some stage, something
that it had often stated. ‘But this will be possible after the
preliminary steps have been taken, the spokesman said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress