WHAT HAVE WE COMPROMISED?
Support A1+!“This summer there is more progress than last summer”, the OSCE Minsk group co-chair Steven Mann evaluated the course of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. And if there is progress, according to the Russian co-chair Yuriy Merzlyakov, «it is the result of the compromise of the two sides».
As for what compromise the sides have made, the co-chairs did not inform considering it confidential. Neither did they speak about the possibility of organizing a referendum in Karabakh, as «There is an agreement not to make details public».
The OSCE Minsk group co-chairs arrived in the press conference with a delay of almost an hour. As Yuriy Merzlyakov commented, the meeting with the RA President Robert Kocharyan lasted longer than anticipated. According to him, the meeting was held in an atmosphere of sincerity and was as circumstantial as that with the Azeri President.
After the May meeting of the Armenian and Azeri Presidents, the co-chairs, according to Merzlyakov, tries to formulate the main clauses of settling the conflict. Part of them is ready, other still need improvement. The main result of this regional meeting, according to the co-chairs, is that it has been cleared out that Kocharyan and Aliev will meet at the end of August in Kazan during the meeting of the CIS countries heads council. And the Foreign Ministers will meet on August 23 in Moscow.
The American co-chair Steven Mann said that there are still unsolved issues and disagreements between the two countries, but there are also objective conditions which will allow settling the conflict till the end of the year. «Although there is a possibility that the issue will be settled till the end of the year, there are no guarantees for this. Another 100 years may be needed for its solution».
The co-chairs stressed once more that they are only mediators, and even if they prepare a document of agreement, the final decision must be made by the Presidents of the two countries.
