Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group hope sincerely that the agreement on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement will be signed in 2006, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairman from Russia Yuri Merzlyakov said in a statement on 17 December at the news conference in Baku. The Co-Chairs will do their best for the negotiation process next year too, the OSCE MG statement says. “We will have meetings with the two Presidents in late January-early February 2006. We hope for the resoluteness and progress observed in the talks to continue,” the Co-Chairs noted, reported Trend agency. The co-chairs are only mediators and the major role in the negotiation process remains for Armenia and Azerbaijan. “The negotiation sides themselves are to be addressed more specific issues of the negotiation process to”, Merzlyakov was quoted as saying, urging the sides to be more reserved in their utterances. According to him, it would be easier for the co-chairs to take measures, “unless the sides come out with militant statements and the cease-fire regime would be sustained.”As he says, such statements serve partly to the “internal political goals”.
“There is a ground for enthusiasm for the co-chairs and we think, the specific base for signing the final agreement will be set up in 2006”, the Russian co-chair noted, saying arrival of the OSCE 6 high level serviceman, who has not been to Azerbaijan since 1998, also gave grounds for “certain optimistic conclusions”. As for the involvement of the representatives of the Nagorno Karabakh Armenian community in the negotiation process, Merzlyakov noted, “the move will be real only after coordinating the principles of the conflict settlement by the sides”.
The US co-chair Steven Mann noted, neither of parties can “receive all they want”, saying, the OSCE Minsk Group welcomes “advancement towards lessening of differences in the position of the sides”. “It is possible, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict will be settled during one year, or during one hundred years”, Mann said, noting the US financial support to Nagorno Karabakh is “minimal and bears the humanitarian character”. The OSCE Minsk group co-chair from France Bernard Fassier called “nonsense” statements of municipality heads of any cities in France on the partnership with the residential settlements of Nagorno Karabakh. “There are 38,000 municipalities and none of them is entitled to make political statements. Such statements are mere rubbish”, the French Co-Chairman said in conclusion.
