MEDIATORS HOPE TO MEET WITH NKR PRESIDENT TODAY IN YEREVAN

PanARMENIAN.Net - YEREVAN, May 21. /Mediamax/. The Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk group Nikolay Gribkov said the mediators hope to meet with the NKR President Arkady Ghukasian today in Yerevan. He is returning from a working visit in France.

Corespondent of Mediamax informed from NKR that Gribkov said the meetings with the Chairman of National Assembly, Premier, Foreign and Defense Ministers of NKR held on May 19 in Stepanakert were "efficient".

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group arrived in NKR on May 19. For the first in the history of this conflict, they crossed the contiguity line of the NKR and Azerbaijani armed forces on the road of Aghdam-Barda. Under the observation of the OSCE representatives a mine clearing and demining of the area was carried out. According to the American co-chair Carey Cavanaugh, the observation of the line allows to hope that after a peace settlement is achieved, the roads between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan will be opened.

Nikolay Gribkov said that the arrival of the mediators in the region has also a business aim. Besides the meetings in Baku, Stepanakert and Yerevan, the co-chairs visit also the regions that must be reconstructed in case if a peace settlement is achieved. "As far as there is a tense situation in the Transcaucasus, there will hardly be a large inflow of investments," Gribkov said.

The French co-chair of Minsk group Philippe de Suremain noted that the mediators take interest in the public opinion of Nagorno Karabakh, in order to know what do the people think about the problem and its settlement. "Everybody's interests must be taken into account, for not creating an impression that we are working against one or the other party," he said. --0--