Category: Asia and Pacific

By Emil Danielyan

The United States, Russia and France have made changes in their proposed basic principles of a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement in hopes of facilitating their acceptance by Armenia and Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said on Friday.

The so-called Madrid principles were formally put forward by the mediators in November 2007 and are still being discussed by the conflicting parties.

“In order to achieve a new phase of the settlement, the foreign ministers of the countries co-chairing the OSCE’s Minsk Group have presented the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with certain changes in the Madrid proposals,” Mammadyarov said, according to the Day.az news service. He did not specify those changes.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry could not be immediately reached for comment on this.

Mammadyarov spoke to journalists in Helsinki where he was attending an annual high-level meeting of the OSCE along with his Armenian counterpart, Eduard Nalbandian. The two men held talks there on Wednesday and had a brief conversation with Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Bernard Kouchner of France as well as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried the next day.

In an ensuing joint declaration, Lavrov, Kouchner and Fried urged the parties to “finalize the Basic Principles in coming months.” The mediating powers hope that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet again soon to iron out their remaining differences on the framework peace accord. Matthew Bryza, Fried’s deputy and the Minsk Group’s U.S. co-chair, expressed hope on Thursday that the meeting will take place “in a couple of weeks.”

Mammadyarov said, however, that Presidents Ilham Aliev and Serzh Sarkisian will hold the next round of their face-to-face talks only “next year.” Aliev and Sarkisian pledged to intensify the search for a mutually acceptable compromise in a declaration which they signed with Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev after talks outside Moscow on November 2.

In a speech at the OSCE meeting on Friday, Nalbandian accused Azerbaijan of “misinterpreting” key provisions of the declaration. He pointed to Aliev’s recent remark that the declaration’s reference to a “political settlement” of the Karabakh conflict does not commit Azerbaijan to non-use of force.

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1598737.html

Helsinki. Tamara Grigoryeva-APA. Delegation of Azerbaijan attending the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Helsinki has issued written statement reflecting Azerbaijan’s Principles applicable to the peaceful settlement of the conflict in and around the
Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

APA correspondent in Helsinki reports that the document reads Azerbaijan is committed to solving the conflict by political means and in a constructive
manner. But Azerbaijan will never compromise its territorial integrity and thus accept a fait-accompli based solution, which the Armenian side is trying to impose.
The conflict can only be solved on the basis of respect for the territorial integrity and
inviolability of the internationally-recognized borders of Azerbaijan, and peaceful coexistence of Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region within Azerbaijan, fully and equally enjoying the benefits of democracy and prosperity.
The ultimate objective of the settlement process is to elaborate and define the model and legal frameworks of the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh region within Azerbaijan. The process of definition of any status shall take place in normal peaceful conditions with direct, full and equal participation of the entire population of the region, namely, the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities, and in their constructive interaction with the Government of Azerbaijan exclusively in the framework of a lawful and democratic process. Attempts to define the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in a situation of continued occupation of the region and surrounding territories, and forced displacement of Azerbaijani population are incompatible with universal and European values and contradict the principles and ideas of peace, democracy, stability and regional cooperation. Such attempts seek to legitimize the results of ethnic cleansing and impose a fait accompli situation on Azerbaijan.
A number of important steps have to be taken to reach a stage where the parties concerned can start negotiating a self-rule status for the Nagorno-Karabakh region within Azerbaijan:

• The factor of military occupation must be removed from the conflict settlement context.
Armenia has to withdraw completely from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Delay
of return of the territories can complicate the already difficult settlement process.
• IDPs should return in safety and dignity to their places of origin in the Nagorno-
Karabakh region and adjacent territories.
• Special programs on reconciliation and tolerance should be initiated with a view to
foster cooperation between the two communities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
• All communications in the region shall be opened for mutual use.
• Upon release of the territories of Azerbaijan from the occupation the rehabilitation and economic development of the region shall take place.

By Emil Danielyan and Anush Martirosian

The United States, Russia and France urged Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday to build on reported progress in recent talks between their president and reach a framework agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh in the “coming months.”

High-ranking diplomats from the three nations jointly spearheading the drawn-out peace process reaffirmed the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement that were formally submitted to the conflicting parties in Madrid last year.

“We call on the parties to work with the Co-Chairs [of the OSCE Minsk Group] to finalize the Basic Principles in coming months, and then begin drafting a comprehensive peace settlement as outlined by those agreed principles,” Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Bernard Kouchner of France and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said in a joint declaration.

The declaration was issued after the three men met with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on the sidelines of an OSCE ministerial meeting in Helsinki. A spokesman for Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian told RFE/RL that the meeting lasted for about 15 minutes but gave no further details.

Nalbandian and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov, held much lengthier talks in the Finnish capital on Wednesday in the presence of other American, French and Russian diplomats co-chairing the Minsk Group. A statement by the Armenian Foreign Ministry said they agreed to maintain the “positive atmosphere” created by the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents at their November 2 talks outside Moscow. In a joint statement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliev pledged to “intensify” the peace process.

Lavrov, Kouchner and Fried likewise emphasized the “positive momentum” which they said was established by the two presidents. “The Moscow Declaration signed that same day opened a new and promising phase in our shared endeavor to expand peace in the South Caucasus,” they said.

The Helsinki statement called on the conflicting parties to bolster the ceasefire regime along the Line of Contact east of Karabakh and the Armenian-Azerbaijani frontier by pulling back snipers from their frontline positions. “We reiterate our firm view that there is no military solution to the conflict and call on the parties to recommit to a peaceful resolution,” it said.

The declaration said nothing about the next meeting of Aliev and Sarkisian which the mediators say could prove decisive for the signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord. Matthew Bryza, Washington’s chief Karabakh negotiator, said last month the holding of yet another Armenian-Azerbaijani summit hinges on the outcome of the Helsinki talks.

Speaking to an RFE/RL correspondent in Helsinki on Thursday, Bryza expressed hope that Aliev and Sarkisian will meet again “in a couple of weeks” and insisted that the peace process is “moving forward.” “We need to see the basic principles finalized, and we believe they can be soon,” he said. “And we also want to see serious confidence-building measures and finally make sure everybody realizes there is only a peaceful settlement to this conflict. You cannot solve this conflict through a military way.”

In Yerevan, meanwhile, a former military leader of Karabakh, Samvel Babayan, predicted that the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute will remain unresolved in the next five years. He also criticized the Armenian government’s Karabakh policy.

“Even though our foe hasn’t accepted any compromise variants, we are saying that are ready to compromise,” Babayan told journalists. “Nobody knows what are giving up and why.”

The once influential general also accused Yerevan of helping to effectively drive the Karabakh Armenians out of the negotiating process. “Yerevan should not have become a negotiating party,” he said. “Stepanakert should have.”

Arkady Ter-Tadevosian, another retired army general who played a major part in the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan, was also skeptical about chances of Karabakh peace. He claimed that oil-rich Azerbaijan is making “intensive preparations for hostilities.”

(Armenian Foreign Ministry photo: Lavrov reads out the declaration to journalists.)

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