BAKU WITHHOLDS COMMENT ON YEREVAN’S KARABAKH POSITION

news.az
March 29 2010
Azerbaijan

Elkhan Polukhov The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has not yet been
informed of Armenia’s position on the updated Madrid principles for
a Karabakh settlement.

Azerbaijan will determine its attitude to Armenia’s position only
after it has been briefed by the OSCE Minsk Group mediators, Foreign
Ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov said today.

‘We must learn the position of the Armenian side on the updated
Madrid principles and only after this will we declare our vision on
the issue,’ the diplomat said.

The Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Yury Merzlyakov, said
in Karabakh that the Armenian side did not agree with some points in
the updated Madrid principles.

The updated Madrid principles are proposed by the mediators as the
basis for negotiations on a Karabakh settlement. Baku accepts the
updated principles in general, but ‘there are elements that do not
suit us’, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said earlier this month.

The Madrid principles include the return of the territories surrounding
Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, an interim status for Karabakh
providing guarantees for security and self-governance, and the future
determination of the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh through
a legally binding expression of will.

Azerbaijan has said that any referendum on the status of Karabakh
would have to be held in Azerbaijan as a whole.