Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian has said that the Nagorno-Karabakh republic has to take part in talks on a peace agreement.
He told a joint press conference with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt in Yerevan today that he fully agreed with Karabakh leader Bako Sahakyan that "no breakthrough can be achieved in the settlement process without the participation of Stepanakert".
(Stepanakert is the Soviet-era name for the capital of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh republic, which is known in Azerbaijan by its original name of Khankandi.)
"It's impossible to pass on to the second stage of a settlement without the NKR’s agreement with the Basic Principles," Mediamax reported Nalbandian as saying.
The mediators have been urging Azerbaijan and Armenia to accept what are known as the Basic Principles for a peace settlement for some time.
The Russian, French and US presidents, whose countries co-chair the OSCE Minsk Group, mediating a solution to the conflict, issued a statement last month calling on the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents to finalize the Basic Principles for a peace settlement at their meeting in Kazan on 25 June.
Nalbandian said today that, once the Basic Principles are agreed, "The second stage envisages drafting a peace agreement and the NKR should definitely take part in these talks."
Independent Azerbaijani MP Rasim Musabeyov commented last month that the Karabakh Armenians could be party to the peace talks only when Armenian troops had been withdrawn from Azerbaijani territory.
Peacekeepers
The Armenian foreign minister repeated his claim today that the issue of peacekeepers had yet to be discussed in the peace talks, in direct contradiction with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.
"I have already stated that these are wrong comments. Among the six provisions voiced by Presidents Obama, Sarkozy and Medvedev in L’Aquila and Muskoka, there is a point about a peace maintenance operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. But this issue has never been discussed in the last three years. This is why no consent could have been reached on this issue," Nalbandian said.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said after meeting the Minsk Group co-chairs last week that agreement had been reached that peacekeepers would be formed not from among the co-chairing countries or neighbouring states.
The disagreements do not bode well for significant progress at the presidents' summit in Kazan.
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