Recently, in Kiev, in addition to the meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, another meeting was also held. As reported by the Azerbaijani media, the next day following the official meeting, on December 5, by the initiative of the two OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, the American Arbitration James Uorlikn and the French Arbitration Jacques Faure, as well as the Personal Representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk met with the representatives of “Independent Civil Minsk process”, opposition politicians, Armenia’s President’s Special Envoy for 1992-95, David Shahnazaryan and former Azerbaijan President Heydar Aliyev’s Councilor Eldar Namazov.
Note that the “Independent Civil Minsk process” involves civil society representatives, experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Aravot.am” inquired from David Shahnazaryan what the purpose of the meeting in Kiev was and what the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs expect from the “Independent Civil Minsk Process.” David Shahnazaryan first informed that the co-chairs had met with him and Eldar Namazov not as opposition politicians as it was presented by the Azerbaijani media, but as representative of the “Independent Civil Minsk Process” and as official representatives of Armenian and Azerbaijan in the past Nagorno-Karabakh conflict negotiating process.
As informed by Shahnazaryan, at the Kiev meeting, they presented the co-chairs the future projects of the “Independent Civil Minsk Process”, as well as their views on how transform activity and effectiveness to the OSCE Minsk Group negotiation process under the new realities available in the region. “In particular, we expressed the opinion that, within the OSCE Minsk Group, peacefull settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh process is very close, and it needs to be possibly transparent to the public, because we are confident that the two countries’ presidents, foreign ministers, as a rule, do not present the public the things that they are discussing at the negotiation table,” said David Shahnazaryan.
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In fact, to our question why the Russian co-chair Igor Popov was not present at the meeting, who was also in Kiev, Shahnazaryan diplomatically replied that the initiators of the meeting were not he and Namazov.
Read our interview with David Shahnazaryan in the upcoming issue of “Aravot” about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Armenia and Armenia’s domestic political situation
Emma GABRIELYAN
