Armenia, Azerbaijan inching closer to deal, says Bryza

Armenia and Azerbaijan are inching closer to a framework agreement on the long-standing territorial dispute, a top U.S. official has said, downplaying the significance of changes made in the international mediators’ existing peace proposals.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza paid a two-day visit to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, and met with President Serge Sarkisian, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL, reported on its Web site.

Bryza rejected suggestions that the newly modified version of the proposed basic principles of a Karabakh settlement was less favorable to the Armenian side than the original document formally put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group in Madrid in November 2007. Bryza also said Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey had a historical chance to improve relations, but added that negotiations would resume for several months.

“The fundamental formulations that are in the Madrid document remain, and what has changed is a few slight technical points that are important, of course, but they are technical and in no way disadvantage either side,” Bryza told RFE/RL in an interview on Saturday.

Bryza and fellow Minsk Group co-chairs from Russia and France met in Krakow, Poland, late last month to prepare what they call an “updated version” of the peace plan and thereby try to facilitate its acceptance by the conflicting parties.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave in Azerbaijan that has been occupied by Armenian forces since the end of a six-year conflict that left about 30,000 people dead and displaced a million more before a truce was reached in 1994. Its unilateral independence is not recognized by the international community.

Sarkisian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met last month for the new round of peace talks in Russia, as the Kremlin cast itself as a peacemaker after its August war with Georgia. Moscow said Armenia and Azerbaijan had made progress toward a resolution. Mediators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, who have been monitoring peacemaking efforts, hope that the two leaders will finally achieve a breakthrough when they meet again in late September or early October.

Turkey, which is also involved in normalization talks with Yerevan, closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan in the conflict.

Proposed changes:

Bryza discussed the proposed changes in the peace plan with Sarkisian on Friday and is scheduled to hold similar talks with Azerbaijan’s Aliyev on Wednesday. “What we did [in Krakow] was try to offer our best ideas and suggestions on how to bridge the remaining differences between the presidents based on all of the discussions that have taken place since the Madrid document was first presented back in November 2007,” RFE/RL quoted him as saying. “President Sarkisian has strong views, President [Robert] Kocharian had strong views after Madrid, President Aliyev has strong views. Discussions have gone up and back for almost two years, and we took all of those ideas that were put on the table and tried to bring them together with the co-chairs’ best effort to make both sides as satisfied as possible.”

Some opposition politicians in Armenia have speculated that the updated peace proposals call for more Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan on key issues such as the holding of a future referendum on self-determination in Nagorno-Karabakh, security guarantees for the Armenian-controlled territory and the return of refugees. They claim that there are important differences between the mediating powers’ recent and past statements on Karabakh.

Bryza dismissed those claims as “ridiculous” and “empty.” “Certainly those who are claiming that the update of the Madrid document, based on what we did in Krakow, somehow disadvantages Armenia … are operating out of sheer ignorance,” he said.

Bryza also maintained that the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders agree on the “fundamental concept” behind the compromise settlement favored by the United States, Russia and France. “But it’s a long distance from agreeing on the basic concept to actually agreeing or to having a finalized document,” he cautioned. Significantly, the U.S. envoy indicated that Baku and Yerevan are close to agreeing a timetable for the withdrawal from seven Azerbaijani districts that were partly or fully occupied by Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war. According to some Armenian sources, that was the main stumbling block in Aliyev’s negotiations with Kocharian.

Sarkisian’s predecessor is said to have insisted that two of those districts, which are wedged between Armenia and Karabakh, be returned to Azerbaijan only after the Karabakh referendum. Aliyev rejected that condition. In a recent televised interview, he said that the Kelbajar and Lachin districts would be placed back under Azerbaijani control five years after the start of an Armenian pullout from the other occupied territories.

“I think they are getting close and maybe they do generally agree on the timing [of Armenian troop withdrawal,] but there are very important details that still have to be agreed and can not be agreed until other associated questions, other elements of the basic principles are resolved,” Bryza said. “So I would not say that they agreed on any of these things, but they are coming closer.”

Source: Hurriyet
URL: www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=armenia-azerbaijan-inching-closer-to-deal-says-bryza-2009-08-09

Posted by admin August 2009

Post A Comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website