BERNARD FASSIER: STEPANAKERT WILL JOIN TALKS SOONER OR LATER
PanARMENIAN.Net
03.03.2009 12:24 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ OSCE Minsk Group French Co-chair welcomed Yerevan
and Baku’s positive assessments of the presidential meeting in Zurich.
"We held productive meetings in Stepanakert with President Bako
Sahakyan and representatives of non-governmental organizations. Talks
in Baku and Yerevan also proved efficient. Now we are planning
to return to Baku to meet with President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. I am hopeful we will succeed in arranging
a presidential meeting within the coming months," Ambassador Bernard
Fassier told a news conference in Yerevan on Tuesday.
At that he noted that Azerbaijan’s ongoing attempts to discredit
Armenia in the UN hamper the process badly.
The mediators also emphasized that the issue of Armenian and Azeri
refugees is on the agenda as one of the key elements of the negotiation
process.
Touching on NKR participation in talks, Ambassador Fassier said that
Nagorno Karabakh will be engaged in the process one day.
"We always visit Stepanakert after meetings in Baku and Yerevan. But
inclusion of Karabakh into talks depends on the parties to conflict,"
he said.
For his part, Russian Co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov that the incident
which took place during the recent OSCE monitoring will be discussed
at the OSCE Permanent Council’s meeting on March 5.
"We expect the council to support the statement Ambassador Andrzej
Kasprzyk will submit in Vienna," he said.