YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–The senior advisor to the US State Department on issues of newly independent states in the post-Soviet space–Stephen Sestanovich–told Radio Liberty that during his meeting with Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian early this month the latter proposed new ideas to speed up the solution to the Karabakh problem.
In particular–according to Sestanovich–who stressed that the solution would drag if the old approaches were applied–Robert Kocharian said that he wanted peace talks to resume. Sestanovich did not go into detail–saying that both Armenian and Azeri authorities had confirmed their positions–that is to have the Minsk Group and the co-chairmen as negotiators. "The main thing in this issue is to find a formula which would satisfy each of the sides," said Sestanovich–stressing that both Baku and Yerevan want new ways of solving the problem.
The US State Department official left Yerevan for Baku and conveyed Kocharian’s new ideas to Heydar Aliyev. According to Sestanovich–his meeting with Azerbaijan’s leader was very positive and "Aliyev referred to the need for undoing the knot with a deep understanding of this."