Wednesday, October 29 2014

The latest Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting in Paris can be qualified as useful, constructive, interesting and sincere, Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian told reporters after the two presidents' meeting in Paris. 

"You can feel a tinge of optimism in my speech. We say that the negotiations were sincere, useful, constructive and interesting for a reason. A step towards rapprochement of the countries' positions was made during the meeting in Paris. Moods have improved in the period from the Sochi to Paris meeting.  This is a complicate process, indeed. One-two meetings are not enough to achieve breakthroughs in the negotiations. It is important that the parties have reaffirmed their commitment to the peaceful resolution of the conflict through negotiations," Nalbandian said. 

As for French President Hollande's statement suggesting the parties to work on a Big Peace Treaty, Nalbandian said the parties will start working on it as soon as they coordinate their stances on the basic elements of the conflict's resolution. "There is no such consensus yet, and it is early to speak of a conceptual agreement," the minister said, 

He said that in the course of the Paris meeting, President Hollande urged the parties to take confidence building measures in the region, including to remove snipers from the Line of Contact of the Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forces and introduce mechanisms of inquiring into incidents in the conflict zone. 

"Both the Armenian party and the mediators have always supported such ideas. However, Azerbaijan is not ready for it yet. Nevertheless, everyone understands that the conflict's resolution is impossible unless there is mutual confidence between the parties," Nalbandian said.  
He recalled that 17 high-level meetings have been held since 2008 and such meetings help the parties understand each others positions, reveal opportunities of making a progress in the peace process. "In this light, I think the meeting in Paris was useful," Nalbandian said.

According to him, the last three meetings of Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev at the initiative of the presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair-countries demonstrate how much determined they are to continue the peace process. "High-level meetings have intensified and proved the efficiency of the OSCE MG format.  This fact was mentioned also at the meeting in Paris," he said.

Nalbandian said there is no agreement on the next high-level meeting so far. "The parties agreed to promote contacts, though one can already see some activation of contacts. By one high-level meetings were held in 2012 and 2013, meanwhile in 2014 the leaders have met already trice. I think, this process will be continued also in future," the minister said.  He assumes that the next meeting of the presidents may take place in New York in 2015 on sidelines of the UN General Assembly Session. 
Edward Nalbandian informed reporters that the presidents touched upon regional and international issues as well. "Discussions showed that on some issue Yerevan and Baku might even have common positions," Nalbandian said.  

The minister said the Armenian and French presidents met separately and discussed the cooperation of Yerevan and Paris. "Armenian-French relations are at a very high level. French investments in economy of Armenia in 2013 reached 1 billion dollars," the minister said. He recalled that French President Hollande made a state visit to Armenia in the current year, but he is expected to visit Armenia also in 2015.