December 8, 2003 - 20:06 AMT
MINSK MEDIATORS WISH TO ESTABLISH CONTACTS BETWEEN "PACKAGE" AND "STEPWISE" VARIANTS FOR KARABAKH SETTLEMENT
We have a number of ideas regarding the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, each possible to be considered new and discussible during the negotiations with the conflicting parties, OSCE Minsk Group US co-chair Rudolf Perina told journalists in Yerevan today. However, in his words, it is time not for making new proposes for the resolving but for trying to come to a common denominator on the basis of the ones existing by reconciling them. When answering the journalists' questions about the comments by the Armenian and Azeri Presidents regarding the mediators' ideas presented during the visit, French co-chair Anri Jakolen reported that Robert Kocharian's stand is known to the co-chairs, as the Armenian President has been dealing with this issue for over 4 years. "As for Ilham Aliyev, we met with him for the first time and it was important for us to acknowledge with his position in order to take it into consideration in future", - the diplomat said. As Russian co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov stated in his turn, one of the objectives of the co-chairs is to digress from "package" and "stepwise" settlement and produce new ideas for establishing contacts between the two variants". The Russian diplomat reiterated that the parties themselves should account for the consensus to be achieved.