Negotiations over Azerbaijan's occupied region of Nagorny Karabakh have entered a "very important stage," Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian said Thursday ahead of talks in Moscow.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia on Sunday for negotiations over Nagorny Karabakh.
"The negotiating process is at a very important stage and can become more active after Medvedev's initiative," Nalbandian told journalists in Yerevan.
He said that after Sunday's meeting, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian will head to France for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy on the Karabakh conflict.
"If the leaderships of Armenia and Azerbaijan come to any agreement on the resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, it will be made public", said Nalbandyan. He said that this is an issue, which requires wide discussions not only in Armenia but also in Karabakh. The Minister added that the Armenian leadership is regularly contacting the so called "NKR" leadership about the said issue.
As for the forecasts that the conflict will be settled in 2-3 months, the Foreign Minister said that such forecasts were made earlier at different levels as well, but none of them came true. "We will be able to find the solution to the conflict if Azerbaijan demonstrates will and does not hamper the negotiation process by making different statements in all possible structures", said Nalbandyan.
He noted that if Armenia made similar responses to these statements, the negotiation process would have been suspended but "we believe in the effectiveness of negotiations". Speaking about Armenia's position regarding the composition of the peacekeeping contingent which "will possibly be dislocated in the territories adjacent to Karabakh", Nalbandyan noted that it is early to speak about it but it would be better that the peacekeeping contingent is multinational.
Along with the United States, France and Russia are co-chairs of the Minsk Group, which is seeking to resolve the conflict and is under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Medvedev invited Sarkisian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to the talks in what analysts say is a bid to strengthen Moscow's position in the Caucasus region following the war between Russia and Georgia in August.
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