Armenian Foreign minister: "Azerbaijan misinterprets all the provisions of the Declaration going as far as stating, in particular, that the peaceful settlement does not exclude use of force"

“The negotiations on Nagorno Karabakh settlement received a new impetus at the Moscow meeting initiated by President of the Russian Federation in his capacity as a Head of Co-Chair state and the signing by Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia of the Moscow Declaration. The Co-Chairs supported and approved the Declaration, and we believed that it would intensify the peace process,” Minister Nalbandian said in his address.

“However, Azerbaijan misinterprets all the provisions of the Declaration going as far as stating, in particular, that the peaceful settlement does not exclude use of force. I wonder if there is any other state here, around this table, which could have such interpretation of the very clear notion of the ‘peaceful political settlement.’

“The other vivid example of the misinterpretation of the declaration and the whole process of negotiations, was the provocative non-paper distorting the whole sense of the peace talks circulated yesterday by Azerbaijani delegation, which I don’t even want to comment.

“Despite this, we would want to hope that we will be able to maintain the spirit and the positive momentum of the Moscow declaration and will advance towards the resolution of the conflict. This was also the vision of the declaration made yesterday by the three Co-Chair countries in framework of our Ministerial meeting,” the Minister said.

Foreign Ministers of France, Russia, and the United States - the Co-Chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group - issued a joint declaration of the on Nagorno Karabakh conflict, which says:

“We, the Foreign Ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group’s Co-Chair countries – France, Russia, and the United States – call on the parties to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict to build on the positive momentum established during the meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow on November 2, 2008. The Moscow Declaration signed that same day opened a new and promising phase in our shared endeavor to expand peace in the South Caucasus. In that declaration, the Presidents reaffirm their commitment to advancing a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in the framework of the Basic Principles developed by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs in collaboration with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the basis of their proposals advanced last year in Madrid.

We call on the parties to work with the Co-Chairs to finalize the Basic Principles in coming months, and then begin drafting a comprehensive peace settlement as outlined by those agreed principles. In keeping with the Moscow Declaration, we call on the parties to work with the Co-Chairs to develop confidence-building measures, beginning with pulling back snipers from the Line of Contact to save lives of innocent civilians and soldiers as our mediators already proposed to the sides at the highest level during the last visit mid November. It is urgent for the parties to work with each other, the Co-Chairs, and the Personal Representative of the Chairman in Office to stabilize the ceasefire through this and other measures. We reiterate our firm view that there is no military solution to the conflict and call on the parties to recommit to a peaceful resolution.”

/PanARMENIAN.Net/