BAKU—Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and his foreign minister, Elmar Mammadyarov said Azerbaijan was ready to move forward with talks, without the so-called “Basic Principles,” that the mediating countries have been pushing for.
Aliyev signaled his dissatisfaction with existing international proposals to end the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, stressing that Baku supports an earlier version of the peace plan proposed by mediating powers in late 2009, according to RFE/RL.
“The updated Madrid principles [of the conflict’s resolution] put forward by the mediators [in 2009] for the continuation of negotiations could have been accepted,” Aliyev said on Tuesday during a meeting of his cabinet. “But unfortunately, the Armenian side didn’t accept those principles, renounced them, and the process of negotiations stagnated until the middle of 2010.
“After that new proposals were made. Sometimes these proposals changed the essence and the basic principles of negotiations, which we have conducted for the last seven years.”
“That is why we are now faced with a new situation,” added Aliyev.
Aliyev did not specify whether he supports what the United States, Russia and France have described as the latest version of their basic principles of Karabakh peace that was discussed by the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents at their last two meetings held in Russia in March and June this year.
The mediators hoped that the most recent Armenian-Azerbaijani summit organized by Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev in Kazan will yield a long-awaited framework agreement on Karabakh. However, Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian failed to reach any agreements.
Armenia says that the Kazan summit failed because Aliyev demanded a dozen changes in the current basic principles. Azerbaijani officials have not explicitly denied these claims.
Mammadyarov told Interfax news agency that the sides should go to the negotiating table without the “Basic Principles.”
“There are still points to disagree, and they should be reflected in the peace agreement. If there is a political will than why not to start working on it without waiting for the next stage of negotiations on Basic Principles,” said Mammadyarov.
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Azerbaijan is simply manuevering to gain time and build a larger military arsenal. They simply
intend to crush freedom and independence seekers among Talish, Laz, Kurdish and Armenian peoples!
In the case of the first 3, they succeeded temporarily, unlike the 4th case! and this 4th case will have a
domino freedom n independence effects on the first 3, to catch the democratic-freedom train!!! (7)