YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARTSAKHPRESS. The new proposals conveyed by Azerbaijan to Armenia on a peace treaty show that the negotiation process hasn’t stopped and it continues, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said at a joint press conference with Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić-Radman in Yerevan.
“I’d like to reaffirm what I said in Berlin, the negotiations around a peace treaty are a continual process and the parties exchange proposals, comments and substantiations in several stages, followed by new proposals in new stages, and that’s how the process should presumably advance. Alongside this process, meetings of the ministers take place where these proposals are discussed. We really didn’t find it to be possible to participate in the meeting planned for December 23 in Moscow obviously because of the illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor, but like I’ve said, without having participated, we conveyed our proposals remotely. And ten days ago we received Azerbaijan’s proposals. We are basically in the phase of discussion. This shows that by and large the negotiations process has not stopped, comments and proposals continued being exchanged, and now we will present our new comments based on the comments of the Azerbaijani side,” FM Mirzoyan said.
Mirzoyan said releasing the content of the proposals is inexpedient.
“And the stances of the parties around various issues in various stages are approximating to each other in some cases, but in some cases they continue to be very far from each other. Thus, politically it’s inexpedient to release an individual detail and reveal the stances of the sides at this moment over the given issue, because tomorrow there could be an entirely different picture. I say again, in some cases it’s been possible to bring us closer, but the Armenian side has its principled issues in this process, and I believe we’ve publicly spoken about these issues on many occasions,” the minister said.
The FM said Armenia did not cancel the planned Moscow meeting in December, but postponed it.
He said the meeting will be rescheduled at a convenient time. “The meeting can take place in Moscow or elsewhere. If you’ve followed the trajectory you’ve seen that we’ve had such meetings in various capitals and various cities. I’d like to say that it would be fair to note that the selection of the host city for the meeting is certainly important, but at the same time, by and large, it doesn’t have an extremely significant impact on the process. And in this regard we are ready to hold the next meeting in Moscow,” Mirzoyan said.
