AssA-Irada,
19, September 2007

Baku expects no breakthrough in talks on settling the long-standing conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh until the 2008 presidential elections in Armenia.

The Azerbaijani President's Upper Garabagh negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said Armenia's position after the June 9 meeting of Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharian on the sidelines of a CIS summit in St. Petersburg provided no grounds for progress.

"Azerbaijan is increasingly getting an impression that the incumbent Armenian leadership is merely engaged in dragging time and is trying to put off the issue until a later stage by prolonging discussions.

"Specific results depend on specific conditions and could be achieved by means of concrete personalities. Making this possible will depend on the steps being taken. This should be guaranteed by the support provided on state level," Azimov said.

He added that persons heading any given country should bear responsibility, and the current Armenian leaders realize this.

The deputy minister said considerable results had been achieved in the course of peace talks underway within the so-called Prague process (phased conflict resolution), and "missing them would be wrong, which both we and Armenia understand".

"It is important to reach a turning point. But is it possible now? I don't think so. I believe no breakthrough should be expected until the elections in Armenia," he said. Azimov noted that the future Armenian leaders should already be well-versed on the peace process in order to be ready for further dialogue when they come to power.

"The situation during the talks after 2008 will differ from the current one depending on the stance of the new Armenian leadership, which will have to take into account the experience accumulated to date," the deputy minister added.

Upper Garabagh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, was occupied by Armenia in the early 1990s, along with seven other Azerbaijani districts, after large-scale hostilities that killed up to 30,000 people and forced a million Azeris out of their homes. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but peace talks have been fruitless so far and refugees remain stranded.