RA foreign affairs minister Vardan Oskanyan will meet with the OSCE co-chairmen, Matthew Bryza, Bernar Fasie and Youri Merzlyakov on September 18 and 19. The minister has given some details in an interview given to “Azatutyun” radio station. “The co-chairmen urge to re-start the negotiations”, said Vardan Oskanyan. According to him, the co-chairmen still believe that the parties may reach success in the negotiations either by the end of this year or at least until the beginning of the upcoming parliamentary elections, that’s why they think it very important to restart negotiating. He also noted that the co-chairmen were working on organizing the meeting of the foreign affairs ministers as soon as possible. “They know very well that there are problems and obstacles that should be worked out so that we can move forward. This has been our major goal during the past two days”, said Vardan Oskanyan. He says that the first issue is to define the main principles in the document so that they can concentrate and work on them, and, secondly, “the reason that Azerbaijan is trying to develop issues in different institutions is the fact that these negotiations are not in their interest”. “We have also spoken about the possible dates when it may be possible to organize a meeting with the ministers, but we didn’t mention certain dates, just talked about it in general”, said V. Oskanyan and added, “the next possible place, where we are both going to visit is New York. We are going to go there to take part in the general Assembly meetings of the UN. I don’t exclude that possibility; if the co-chairmen propose and we agree, the next meeting may take place there. But please note that there is no concrete information regarding that”. Concerning the rumors saying that the president of Armenia and Azerbaijan may meet in Minsk on October 17 during the CIS summit V. Oskanyan said that it was too early to speak about that. According to the minister, it will be possible to speak about the meeting of the president only after the meeting of the foreign affairs ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. “The meeting of the presidents will take place only if there are real opportunities to achieve greater heights in the negotiations process”, noted V. Oskanyan. The minister will also meet with with his French colleague, Dust-Blazi. “We gave a press conference together, where the whole program of the Armenian year in France was officially announced. It will start in September during Jacques Chirac’s visit to Yerevan”, said the RA foreign affairs minister. Concerning the proposed meeting of Jacques Chirac to Armenia the minister said that very soon France would announce the dates. “We are currently working on preparations and are waiting to greet the French president with pleasure,” said Oskanyan and added that a delegation will visit Armenia, which will consist of businessmen, high ranking officials, journalists, artists, etc.
