Oskanian: "Karabakh conflict a far cry from settlement"

"This was quite a complicated and difficult meeting, and no progress was achieved. However, there was no regress, too. Differences on many problems have still not been smoothed out," Oskanian told a news conference in the Armenian capital.

The ministers will continue their talks to pave the way to a new meeting of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is to be held after the parliamentary elections in Armenia, scheduled for May 12, the foreign minister stated. He is sure that "the sooner the Karabakh conflict is settled, the better for everybody."

According to Oskanian, he was not attaching any particular importance to the official statements of the Azerbaijan side. "The principal milestones for us are the negotiations and the document discussed at the talks, as well as the Azerbaijan statements, made at the negotiations, which differ very much from the public pronouncements of the Azeri side," he stressed.

At the bedrock of the document now discussed and of the draft principles of Karabakh settlement "is a formula of which the Armenian side could previously only dream," the minister noted.

"All the documents, which the co-chairmen had tabled up to 1998, began with a preamble, stressing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," Oskanian recalled.

After 1998 the essence of the document was altered to stipulate the right of the Nagorno Karabakh people to self-determination, which is to be decided by a national referendum, the minister acknowledged.

"The legal foundations of Nagorno Karabakh's independence are solid," the Armenian foreign minister underscored. "Karabakh has never been a component part of the independent Azerbaijan," he added. Itar-Tass