Only Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders may reach agreement on Karabakh
August 27, 2010 – 20:03 AMT 15:03 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that maybe there are not
observable results on the Karabakh conflict settlement, as the works
are carried out in a confidential regime. `However, as a participant
of this work, I can state that there are results, which are not
observable for a wide audience,’ he said.
According to Lavrov, disputable issues have considerably been reduced
during the years of Russia’s participation in the activity of the OSCE
Minsk Group Co-Chairmen together with American and French partners.
`And the work on the so-called basic principles, which is under way
now, has yielded certain results with respect to wordings that allow
fixing the parties’ consent at this stage. It does not mean that
everything will be settled immediately upon completion of the work on
basic principles,’ noted Lavrov, adding that a legal document – peace
agreement – should be drafted after the basic principles. `Naturally,
it will require going into details, while the Devil is in details,’
the Minister said.
He added that, at the initiative of President Medvedev, Russia has
being trying to make additional contribution to the search of
agreements, due to which six meetings were held among the Russian,
Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents over the last two years, with two
meetings in 2010.
`Yes, there is not an agreement on everything that refers to the
project of basic principles yet, but there is comprehension concerning
a considerable part of the text. And we offered a common thing – to
fix 2-3 issues, which are not among agreed wordings, as ones requiring
further discussion and to write down clearly that any final agreement
is impossible without these issues. It would allow fixing the progress
achieved with respect to the overwhelming part of the text and showing
simultaneously that there are two-three certain problems, on which
additional efforts should be exerted, thus, fixing the achievements up
to date,’ said Lavrov, adding that the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen
have supported it.
`I would like to repeat it – the adoption of basic principles with
fixation of 2-3 yet uncoordinated moments would be a very important
political signal, which is awaited by the international community and
Europe, that Armenia and Azerbaijan are determined to solve this
conflict and do it peacefully,’ noted Lavrov.
Besides, he reiterated that the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen issued a
joint statement on July 17 in Almaty, saying that the efforts exerted
by the parties have not secured a result at this stage.
`It is the parties that should agree. The Co-Chairmen – be it
unilaterally, bilaterally, trilaterally or at the level of minister
and presidents – will be unable to solve the problem instead of
Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thus, our stance has always been as follows:
we are ready to apply our possibilities, intellectual abilities to
assist in looking for an agreement, but it can be achieved only by the
Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders,’ concluded Sergey Lavrov, Trend News
reported.
From: A. Papazian