Azernews.Az

YEREVAN – Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian has claimed that Azerbaijan, which accepts the outline for settling the Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh conflict with some exceptions, actually "rejects them".

Speaking at a university in Boston, Nalbandian reminded that the mediating OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs submitted the Madrid Document to the parties in November 2007.

"Over twenty working proposals followed based on that document," the Armenian minister told Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. "As a result of intense talks held in the past few months, the latest version of the Madrid proposals was presented to the sides this June in St. Petersburg, and we stated that we accept this version as a basis for negotiations, just as we did regarding the document submitted in November 2007."

Nalbandian was quoted by Armenia’s foreign ministry as saying that Azerbaijan allegedly does not accept either the initial or the latest version of the Madrid principles. He alleged that Baku has said it accepts one of the working proposals, but with certain exceptions, but "it turned out that there are more exceptions than the points it deems acceptable".

"What does it mean – to accept something with adjustments? This actually means not to accept it. What is Azerbaijan expecting? That Armenia and Karabakh will accept its adjusted proposals?"

President Ilham Aliyev and other Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly stated that Baku accepts the updated Madrid Document. They also said Yerevan has not formally stated its clear-cut stance on the peace outline in the past months. Though Armenian officials have repeatedly said Yerevan accepts the document, no official statements have been issued so far to the mediators brokering the peace process or international organizations.

Azerbaijani Presidential Administration official Novruz Mammadov has told the Baku-based ANS TV channel that Nalbandian’s statement was "nonsense", adding that Yerevan would not succeed in misleading the world community with such statements.

The Karabakh conflict emerged during the last few years of the Soviet Union. 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Nagorno Karabakh and seven adjacent districts, has been under Armenian occupation since the two South Caucasus republics signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following a lengthy war. Peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.

The Minsk Group co-chairs, which include Russia, France and the United States, initially proposed a peace outline in Madrid in November 2007. In Athens in November 2009, the updated version of the Madrid Document was submitted to the sides. The document stipulates a stage-by-stage resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, which should start with "the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijani control" and a future determination of the legal status of Nagorno Karabakh "through a legally binding expression of will" and the right of "internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence."