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Minsk Group Co-Chair Bernard Fassier - "We Can Guarantee Security of NKR"
The Minsk Group Co-chairs are now in Stepanakert, NKR, and had a two hour meeting with President Bako Sahakyan. After the meeting the Co-chairs gave a press conference during which Yuri Merzlyakov stated that significant progress in settlement talks had been made since their last trip to the region.
Mr. Merzlyakov said that he hoped that the Yerevan and Baku would agree to their proposal that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan would meet on the sidelines of an upcoming session of presidents of CIS member states.
He added that the Co-chairs would continue their talks with President Sahakyan both later this evening. They plan to return to Yerevan tomorrow afternoon and then travel to Baku the following day.
Responding to a reporter’s question regarding the possible direct participation of the NKR in future settlement talks, the Russian Co-chair said that the issue would have to be ironed out in any agreement based on the Madrid Principles, adding that such an agreement, without the participation of the NKR was impossible.
French Co-chair Bernard Fassier noted that the participation of the NKR in any future talks wasn’t dependent on the Co-chairs themselves.
"The representatives of Karabakh were once participants in the talks but ceased to be due to decisions taken by the Armenian side. Their future participation is now not only dependent on Armenia but Azerbaijan as well," Mr. Fassier argued.
Mr. Fassier preferred not to mention any principles already agreed upon by the conflicting sides, noting that the process hadn’t been fully completed.
"Since all haven’t been fully agreed to, we are not at liberty to say anything. However, only a few sticking points remain," he said.
Mr. Fassier touched upon the security issue of Karabakh and claimed that such security measures would be created that Karabakh would "no longer have anything to fear" and that there would be fewer threats than exist today in the situation of the status-quo.
"We can guarantee the safety of Karabakh relative to the status-quo," he declared.
Yuri Merzlyakov, when asked if the issue of Armenian-Turkish relations wasn’t somehow linked to the Karabakh settlement process, referred to the statement made by the Co-chairs in Yerevan yesterday that the two issues were separate.
"Of course, they can impact each other but we believe that it is impossible for one to be artificially manipulated in such a way to influence the other," Mr. Merzlyakov stated.
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