Azerbaijani President Hints at Nagorno-Karabakh Settlement

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has announced a negotiating breakthrough in long-stalled talks to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In comments broadcast November 29 by state television, Aliyev said "we are approaching the final stage of negotiations." An Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry source indicated that Baku and Yerevan had agreed on a way for Azerbaijani to regain territories currently occupied by Armenian forces.

Aliyev met with his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian on the sidelines of the CIS summit in Minsk on November 28. [For additional details see the Eurasia Insight archive]. During those talks, Aliyev said that the two focused on "contentious issues" that have held up a provisional peace settlement under the so-called Prague Process, mediated by the OSCE's Minsk Group. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"On some of the issues on which we have previously disagreed, we now have agreement," Aliyev said, without elaborating. Armenian officials have not confirmed Aliyev's depiction of the talks.

A source at the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry confirmed to EurasiaNet late on November 29 that "the presidents reached agreement on some very important issues." The withdrawal of Armenian forces from several occupied Azerbaijani regions around Karabakh was one of the issues on which Aliyev and Kocharian agreed in Minsk, the source added. "So far it is just verbal understanding between the presidents. But trend of the negotiations process is very positive, and the signing of any initial document on the conflict resolution in the near future is not excluded," the source said.

Earlier, some experts in Baku suggested that the recent closure of the ANS TV channel, along with the eviction of an opposition party and its newspaper from its erstwhile center-city headquarters in Baku, might be connected to a potential Karabakh deal. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In talking about the breakthrough, Aliyev said that Azerbaijan had not altered its negotiating stance. "Azerbaijan's position has not changed," he said, adding that the country's "territorial integrity should be restored, and within that [arrangement], the people who live in Nagorno-Karabakh should be given the maximum degree of self-rule." He also said that "the position of international organizations has changed in positive way" in recent months.