ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER HOPES FOR PROGRESS IN KARABAKH TALKS
Mediamax news agency
18 Apr 06
Yerevan, 18 April: Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said
in Yerevan today that “the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents did
not manage to achieve progress in Rambouillet. However, we do not
consider the meeting to be a ‘debacle’.”
Addressing a meeting of the Armenian-EU parliamentary cooperation
commission in Yerevan today, Oskanyan said that “the failure at
Rambouillet does not mean the debacle of the entire negotiating
process”, Mediamax reports. In this regard, the Armenian foreign
minister recalled that the decision to hold a meeting at Rambouillet
had been made on the basis of the substantial progress achieved in
the negotiating process in 2005.
Oskanyan noted that taking into account agreements reached earlier
and the [OSCE] mediators’ activity, there are grounds to hope that
progress in the negotiating process will be achieved.
The minister pointed out that while earlier Yerevan said that it
would discuss the elimination of the consequences of the conflict
only after the determination of the political status of Nagornyy
Karabakh, today the Armenian side has made “a serious compromise”
and its position is somewhat different.
“If Azerbaijan agrees that the people of Nagornyy Karabakh have a right
for self-determination which can be implemented not at once but in
the future, then the Armenian side is ready to discuss already today
the elimination of the consequences of the conflict – territories,
refugees and other security issues,” Oskanyan said.