President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev met yesterday at the Radisson Hotel in Zurich. The official release of the meeting in fact doesn’t contain too much of information. As the Armenian presidential press service reports, the meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan started with the participation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the two countries Edward Nalbandyan and Elmar Mamedyarov, as well as the Co- Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov, Matthew Bryza, Bernard Fassier, and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. Later, President Sargsyan and President Aliev continued the talks in the face-to-face format. After the private meeting of the President of Armenia and the President of Azerbaijan the talks were continued in the extended format. Armenian foreign affairs minister Edward Nalbandyan made a statement to Mediamax, which didn’t mean anything at all. He said that the “meeting proceeded in a positive attitude.” However, some other statements heard from the side may say a lot more about Serzh Sargsyan’ s meeting with Aliev. “There are no circumstances that would ban Sargsyan’s meeting. I don’t exclude that the meeting will take place,” stated the Prime Minister of Turkey Rejep Tayyip Erdogan prior to his visit to Zurich. He also made a sensational statement by mentioning that the Armenian Diaspora keeps working against Turkey. “The incumbent government of Armenia doesn’t share these steps,” he said. Another statement made by the foreign minister of Turkey Ali Babajan also inspires hope about the positivism of the meeting. “If the problems between Turkey and Armenia are solved in 2009 I won’t be surprised,” said Babajan by specially noting that Turkey signifies the resolution of the NKR conflict in the relations of Armenia. Therefore the reasons of the “surprise” decision of January 27 PACE session are gradually being revealed. All we have left is wait Aliev’s optimistic statements.
