Armenian, Azeri Presidents to meet Nov 19, paper says

PanARMENIAN.Net - A meeting between the Armenian and Azeri Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev will take place November 19 in Vienna or Zurich, Hraparak daily said citing own sources.

“Expectations from the meeting are not great, the latter being more of a nominal nature. The U.S. side seeks to reaffirm control over the negotiating process, also trying to prevent Russia from using the Ossetian-Abkhazian scenario,” the daily said.

At the meeting, Armenian side will insist on Karabakh’s involvement in the conflict settlement negotiations, the source said.

The Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Jacques Faure of France, and James Warlick of the United States of America) and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, traveled to the region November 4-5 to continue their efforts to help the sides find a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

“The Presidents have confirmed their intention to meet in November 2013 to clarify their positions on a settlement and to discuss the way forward,” they said. “The Co-chairs continue to work on arrangements for the forthcoming summit. The Co-Chairs call upon the sides to exercise restraint on the ground as well as in their public statements. Military action, particularly at this moment, can only be seen as an attempt to damage the peace process.”