STEPANAKERT (RFE/RL)–The meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents will not pave the way for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a spokesman for Karabakh President Bako Sahakian said on Thursday.
The official, Davit Babayan, said the conflict’s resolution will remain elusive as long as the Karabakh Republic’s leadership is excluded from direct Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations. He also stressed that Russia cannot single-handedly broker a peaceful settlement.
“Russia is showing the international community that it is able to take the initiative in the Caucasus,” Babayan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service from Stepanakert ahead of the talks. Babayan was commenting on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s hosting of the fresh talks between his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts in Saint-Petersburg this week.
“In order to have a breakthrough here, there has to be a restoration of the proper negotiating format — Armenia, Karabakh and Azerbaijan — and the involvement of other mediating sides, notably the United States and France,” he said. “As long as these preconditions are not in place, I don’t think there will be any breakthrough.”
Despite regular visits to Stepanakert by the American, French and Russian co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has not been directly involved in the peace talks for over a decade. Azerbaijan refuses any direct contacts with the the Karabakh Republic.
The mediators have repeatedly assured the authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert that Karabakh will play a major role at a later stage in the peace process. Karabakh’s authorities regularly state that no peace deal can be put into practice without their consent.
Babayan claimed that the planned trilateral meeting in Saint-Petersburg will focus not so much on the Karabakh peace process as broader “peace and stability in the region.” He said the three leaders will also discuss implications of Iran’s deepening standoff with the international community over its controversial nuclear program.
Officials in Baku, Moscow and Yerevan have not yet commented on their expectations from what was the first Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in nearly five months.
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Well,as long as Azerbaijan says “territorial integrity” and Armenia says “self determination”, these negotiations will be fruitless.
as far as “territorial integrity” is concerned by azerbaijan they beter forget it because they still have territories that belong to armenians” in azerbaijan .” self determination”..ARTSAKH is republic regardless of not been recognized by international communities.participation of republic of Artsakh is important at any time anywhere even it is a coktail party.
Gelat: master of the obvious.
Self-determination for Armenians from the Caspian to the Mediterranean for life!
Turks should go take care of their territorial integrity in their birth place a.k.a. Mongolia.
I love your input A. Hovanessian, that’s what Monte dreamed for and that’s exactly what I also wish for. “Asdoudso gamkov”.
Thank you Nairian I appreciate your compliment. I enjoy reading your comments as well.
I believe in the will of the people and I also believe the righteous will always prevail no matter how strong and evil the opposition. We liberated Karabakh (Artsakh) from Azeri criminals; we must liberate the enclave of Nakhichevan, which once had majority Armenian population and were pushed out by Turkifying the region by Azeri horde, to cut Azeri criminals off from their “step” brothers and then onto liberating Western Armenia occupied by the criminals of the Republic of Turkey which not only condones but practices the policies of the Ottomans.
You know it boils my blood when I see nonsense comments made by some of these brainwashed illiterate Turks. You can tell they don’t know what the hell they are talking about because they have no depth in the subject and just repeat one-liners like a monkey. When you confront them they freeze like a deer caught in a headlight. It infuriates me when I read these brainless hateful idiots call our ancestral homeland as their country and that they defended their country against us Armenian traitors. Imagine how stupid you have to be to say such things as if we never existed and fell off the sky all of a sudden and gave these peace-loving, humanitarian, compassionate Turks trouble. These are the descendants of the same primitive people who called our people infidels to help expedite the cleansing of our homeland from our people. What do you expect from these whose prime minister calls for the study of the Armenian Genocide and then goes on American public television and calls the Genocide a lie. The same idiot once said the Genocide could not have happened because you can’t be of the Muslim faith and commit genocide. Now remember back in the Ottoman days the Ottoman Empire was so-called the Center of Islam and the criminal mobs who would attack the defenseless Armenians they would be aroused by hateful lectures in their mosques from their Imams. I have more respect for wild dogs than I have for these idiots.