The following are translated excerpts of a press briefing given by Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian after today’s meeting in Bern between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. (The full Armenian version was disseminated by Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

“There have been some twenty meetings between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan during the past seven years. Some meetings have come close to arriving at an agreement, but Azerbaijan has always taken a step back.”

“Azerbaijan hasn’t freed itself of the illusion that it can employ force, intensify the situation, as a tool of negotiating. In fact, this is their weakness. Baku seeks to compensate for its insecurity in the negotiations by such measures.”

“Azerbaijani strategists think that this empowers them. But what has such a policy given them? It has given them neither anything positive nor benefit.”

“In fact, during this meeting, the parties expressed their approaches regarding different elements, different principles, to settling the problem. We can reaffirm that sadly the approaches of the parties are not close and do not coincide.”

“But here, not only do Azerbaijan’s approaches not coincide with those of Armenia’s but, we can state also that they do not coincide with the proposals made by the co-chairs…You know that statements have been made, on a level of the leaders of the co-chairs nations, regarding a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijan avoids, in all manners to refer to those statements in which are expressed those principles and elements that, as the co-chairs have so often noted, that have been made as a complete package, and get rid of one principle or one element makes a settlement impossible.”

“Any meeting, especially on a presidential level, is very important so that the dialogue continues, the negotiations continue, given that, as I have noted, there is no alternative.”

“You know that the three co-chairs have made numerous statements regarding the creation of mechanisms to examine ceasefire violations and incidents. Our side has often stated that we are ready to see to it that such a mechanism is created. Not only are we ready, we have welcomed the creation of such a mechanism.”

“Today, we again discussed the proposal to create such a mechanism. It was reaffirmed that the Armenian parties presented their positive response to it.”

Photo: Twitter - Vladimir Hakobyan (Press Secretary of Armenia’s Office of the President)