Azernews.Az

The Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents both expressed their commitment to continue pursuing a peaceful settlement to the Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict and reaffirmed the seriousness of their side in the negotiations, international mediators have said after meeting with the two leaders.
On Wednesday, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs - Yuri Merzlyakov of Russia, Bernard Fassier of France and Robert Bradtke of the United States - met with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian in Yerevan.
As instructed by their presidents in L'Aquila in July 2009, the co-chairs delivered to President Sarkisian, just as they had to President Ilham Aliyev during their visit to Baku in December 2009, an updated version of the peace outline proposed in November 2007 dubbed the Madrid Document. The document contained the intermediaries’ latest articulation of the Basic Principles of a conflict resolution. On Thursday, the co-chairs met President Aliyev in Baku, the Minsk Group co-chairs said in a statement Friday.
The basic principles for the conflict settlement, outlined in the document, call for "the return of the territories surrounding Upper Garabagh to Azerbaijani control." The outline also covered a future determination of the final legal status of Upper Garabagh "through a legally binding expression of will" and the right of "internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence."
The co-chairs further traveled to Astana for consultations with the government of Kazakhstan, upon its ascension to the chairmanship of the OSCE. Following their consultations in Astana, they will continue on to Sochi, Russia, where Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host the next meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The tripartite meeting is scheduled for Monday.
Azerbaijan hopes the upcoming talks will provide grounds for moving the peace process forward. Novruz Mammadov, the head of the Presidential Administration international relations department, said Baku expects constructive talks on Garabagh conflict settlement to take place in Sochi and to facilitate reaching a certain stage in negotiations.
"In the backdrop of the latest developments, the Armenian leadership, acting in some sense with a healthy mindset, might provide suitable conditions for taking some steps toward a solution of the conflict. In other words, their constructive position may enable taking a step forward in negotiations."
Mammadov noted, however, that this requires a strong will on Yerevan’s part. "At the same time, the Russian president’s stance may have a great importance here."

The presidential administration official said the long-standing Garabagh dispute may be resolved strictly within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, adding Baku will not back down from this intransigent stance.
Armenia, while stating that it welcomes the Russian leader’s efforts toward reaching a solution to the conflict, says it is not expecting a breakthrough in peace talks not only at the Sochi meeting but in 2010 overall. Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian was quoted by Novosti Armenii news agency as saying that "some advances may be achieved if the Azerbaijani side displays constructivism in talks, but I don’t think 2010 will see a turning point in negotiations."
The conflict between the two South Caucasus republics reared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims. Armenia has been occupying over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory since the early 1990s in defiance of international law. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but efforts by the international mediators have been largely fruitless so far.*