Aliev did not go further in detail regarding the new format, but as we see, recently there is some activation concerning the Karabakh issue. Yesterday the French co-chairman of OSCE Minsk group, Bernar Fasie, visited Armenia. He hosted a press conference in Yerevan today. The day before his visit to Armenia he organized a press conference in Baku, where he said that this week they would make new recommendations to the parties to resolve the conflict. “If the conflict is resolved according to these new principles, the parties will definitely feel satisfied for 50%, and even for 80%”, said Fasie. According to him the current phase of negotiations is the continuation of the processes and negotiations in Praha. The American co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk group, Steven Mann, had visited Armenia before the visit of Fasie, and it is expected that he will visit the region one more time after Fasie leaves. It is not clear yet why the co-chairmen visit the region one by one, but we know already that these three co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk group will visit Moscow at the beginning of May to discuss the results of their negotiations in April. Besides that, they are also planning to visit the region together, where they are going to agree on details of the next meetings of the presidents, but there isn’t any concrete information yet regarding the place and date of the next meeting. Yesterday the Russian co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk group, Youri Merzlyakov said that the foreign affairs ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia might meet with the OSCE Minsk group co-chairmen in a foreign country. It is worth mentioning that this recent activation in this issue is mostly influenced by the efforts of the US, which is disappointed about the failure of negotiations in Rambouillet. It is worth mentioning that during these 3-4 weeks the deputy foreign affairs ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan visited the US, and the Azerbaijani president will visit the US at the end of this month and will meet with the US president, George Bush. Supposedly by inviting the Azerbaijani president to the US, Washington wants to try to get support connected with Iran, and instead they will ignore the cases of human right violations and the violated elections in Azerbaijan. Some analyzers say that this invitation is directly connected with the anti-Iranian campaign proposed in the United States and resolving the Karabakh conflict. For instance, according to political scientist Zafar Guliev Washington will help Azerbaijan resolve the Karabakh conflict, thus expecting to get its support to form anti-Iranian coalition. According to him, it is very important for the US to include Baku in that coalition like in the case of Iraq. “Azerbaijan has been implementing balanced foreign policy, but there are cases when you have to make a choice, and in this case Washington doesn’t give an opportunity to Azerbaijan to make a choice”, thinks Guliev. As for head of the Azerbaijani president’s office PR department, Ali Hasanov, he announced yesterday that the president’s visit to the US, which would start as of April 28, had been planned long before. According to Hasanov during this visit the parties are going to discuss issues connected with mutual cooperation. “We are working with the US to solve global, energetic conflicts and other problems”, said Hasanov. According to him, during this visit the US, as a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk group, “will pay attention to the issue of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan”. He also said that the negotiations in Rambouillet, and the other negotiations before that had already led to progress. “We want to solve this problem this year. We should discuss the main principles of negotiations and both parties should be pressured to apply those principles”, said Hasanov and added that it was clear that Armenia had occupied territories from Azerbaijan. “Azerbaijan has the right to return its territories and recover its territorial integrity. Some actions will be taken for this purpose too”, said Hasanov. He also said that Azerbaijan not only expected, but also required the US and the other co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk group to pressure Armenia. Nevertheless, in spite of what some analyzers say, Ali Hasanov said that the issue of Iran would not be the main subject of the American-Azerbaijani negotiations.
