RUSSIA UPBEAT ABOUT UPCOMING ROUND OF AZERI-ARMENIAN TALKS ON KARABAKH – DIPLOMAT

Interfax
June 8 2011
Russia

Russia upbeat about upcoming round of Azeri-Armenian talks on Karabakh
– diplomat Baku and Yerevan have a real chance to settle the conflict
over Nagorno-Karabakh at the moment, said Russian Ambassador to
Azerbaijan Vladimir Dorokhin.

“The international community’s efforts have made a chance to conclude
serious, realistic agreements, and Russia will do all it can so that
this chance is not missed,” Dorokhin said at a press conference at
the Interfax office in Azerbaijan on Wednesday.

There have been both encouraging and negative moments in the
negotiating process on Nagorno-Karabakh in the past years, but a
meeting between the Azeri, Armenian, and Russian presidents in Kazan
at the end of June is expected with optimism, Dorokhin said. “It is
a moment of hope now. The very fact of more intensive negotiations
speaks for itself,” he said.

“I can tell you with my conscience clear that, when Russia says it
is doing all it can for settling this conflict, it absolutely does
not stretch the truth,” he said.

Unlike the other two international mediators in settling the conflict
over Nagorno-Karabakh, i.e. the U.S. and France, Russia is conducting
the settlement process at the presidential level, and there is a
reason for that, as Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia were once parts
of one country and are close neighbors now, Dorokhin said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress