MEDIATORS GETTING READY TO SPEED UP NEGOTIATIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net - Mediators will discuss in Vienna the new ideas concerning the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. The Russian peace maker has met in Baku with Prime Minister Ilham Aliyev, Speaker of Milli Mejlis Murtuz Aleskerov and Foreign Minister Vilayat Guliyev. He met also with Nizami Bakhmanov, the representative of Azerbaijani refugees that left the NKR as a result of military actions. (In Baku he is considered to be the head of the Azeri community of Nagorno Karabakh). The diplomat did not reveal any details about the new initiative of the co-chairmen. The only thing that attracted the attention of the Azeri journalists was the fact that he did not give a positive answer to the question, whether the new proposals will be based on the principle of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. He only noted that his activity will be based on the position of the President Putin, according to which there should be no winners and no losers in the Karabakh conflict.

His interlocutors did not like this position. Particularly, Murtuz Aleskerov said in response that in Azerbaijan they appreciate the opinion of the Russian President about the principle of territorial integrity stressing thus their dissatisfaction with the words of the mediator. While Nizami Bakhmanov said after the brief meeting that that ''it was a meeting without results because the co-chairman did not have any new idea''.

We shall note that in Yerevan and Stepanakert they took with ''understanding'' the fact that Merzlyakov agreed to meet in Baku with a person that had nothing to do with the negotiations on conflict settlement. At the same time the authorities of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh did not demand that the mediators spend time meeting with the representatives of Armenian refugees that have moved from Azerbaijan. In Stepanakert he negotiated with the President Arkady Ghukasian, Foreign Minister Ashot Glyan and Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian. The both parties described those meetings as positive. The co-chairman of the Minsk group noted that ''the contacts with representatives of the Karabakh state allow him to have a deeper impression about the situation in Nagorno Karabakh and the conflict itself''. The mediator discussed with the NKR authorities the military-political situation in the region and the situation in the contact line of the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Tomorrow Yuri Merzlyakov will meet in Yerevan with resident Robert Kocharian, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian and Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian. The next visit to the region is planned in the end of autumn. The diplomat confirmed that after summing up the results of presidential elections to be held in Azerbaijan the co-chairmen will speed up the negotiations. The upcoming meeting of the Minsk group co-chairmen to be held in Vienna will be the last one before the key tour.