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Azerbaijani Foreign Minister: There is a proposal of the Russian side to continue meetings in the trilateral format

06 December 2011 18:54 (UTC +04:00)

Vilnius. Viktoria Dementyeva â€“ APA. "It would be possible to call it a success when a breakthrough is achieved in the negotiations which lasts about 20 years, unfortunately, Azerbaijani territories still remain under Armenian occupation, and Azerbaijani people people living in the those territories were ethnically cleansed and can not return to their homes", - Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists the 18th Meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Vilnius.
According to Mammadyarov, the parties have negotiated most intensively for the past seven years, because the so-called Prague process started, and in this context, it led to more specific results that are called Madrid principles. Their last version was presented to the co-chairs - the United States, France and Russia - within the OSCE ministerial meeting in Athens in 2009.

Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov said that on certain issues could not find a definitive point of contact, but in general the principle of creating a good basis for moving forward and conclude the main peace agreement.

He noted that Azerbaijan proposes to move to the next step and begin work on the main peace agreement. "That is a "skeleton" is created and now we must build upÂ» meat", - he said.

FM said that work on the agreement will not take much time, as the conflict itself is a very multi-faceted and very complex. It is necessary to determine the confidence-building measures to take into account the factor of hostilities, the return of internally displaced persons, to solve financial problems. "Realizing this, we believe that you should not just stay on the principles and the need to begin work on an agreement", - he said.

Commenting on the possibility of another meeting between Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Minister said that it is difficult to make proposals to the presidents, in addition, they have their own agenda. â€œMeeting of the presidents even if not help to close the partiesâ€™ position, but to understand each otherâ€, - he said.

"The conflict must be resolved. Build a wall between the parties is not possible, already had one wall that divided Berlin. We must seek common point with neighbors. And in this case an absolute anachronism is the occupation of about 20% of Azerbaijani territory with a totally unacceptable practice of ethnic cleansing. If we say that we live in Eurasia, where democracy, human rights and the rule of law are flourishing, it is difficult to justify the occupation of territories by Armenia. By no any means can justify the fact that it was 20-30 years ago", - he said.

Elmar Mammadyarov said that there is a proposal of the Russian side to continue negotiations on the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "Russia has initiated since December 2009 to continue talks in a trilateral format on the level of the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia. Rather intensive consultations lasted for two years. Unfortunately, the last meeting in Kazan did not end with the result that everyone expected - a breakthrough in negotiations and decision to withdraw Armenian troops from occupied territories in return for a gradual solution to the conflict", - he said.

The Minister expressed that today in the speeches of ministers within the framework of the OSCE Ministerial Council, it was noted that it is necessary to get progress in the negotiation process. In a statement made by the heads of delegations of the co-chairs also noted the inadmissibility of preserving the "status quo" and the need for a progress in negotiations, Azerbaijani Foreign Minster said.