OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Press Conference

Matthew Bryza: Thank you. Thank you all for coming. And those of you have been with us today at the Foreign Ministry patiently waiting for us, thank you for coming back now to have a chance for us to speak with you. I’d like to welcome my friends, colleagues, and fellow co-chairs. Ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov, Ambasador Bernard Fassier. I’m so happy to be traveling together with my friends. I’ve been lonely for much of the summer, due to whatever diplomatic circumstances ensued, to have been alone for a bit of the summer, so it’s much better to be together with our team. The purpose of our trip is to try to resume direct contacts between the sides. Our Deputy Foreign Ministers were here 5 months ago and they had intensive discussions that we thought injected some momentum into the process of a Karabakh settlement. But we had a bit of a pause this summer. But we have now resumed the intensive phase of our mediation efforts and this is in fact the third time in three weeks that we have seen Foreign Minister Mammadyarov. I’m happy to be back in this city that I love so much with my friends but I turn the microphone over to them.

Yuri Merzlyakov: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. The co-chairs are glad to be in Baku after a five-month break after the last trip. As Mr. Bryza and I told you this morning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the main issue for this moment is the resumption of direct negotiations between the sides. In this regard we think that the part related to Azerbaijan has been implemented. Tomorrow we are going to Yerevan and after that, evidently, we can announce about place and time of the next meeting of the Ministers of the Foreign Affairs. Thank you and I would like to give a floor to Mr. Fassier.

Bernard Fassier: Now, amis, bonjour. Dear friends, I am happy to be in Baku again, but asI presume that a great deal among you is not practicing every day the great language of Moliere, I will speak the one of Shakespeare. As my friends Matt and Yuri have already said, we are here to resume the direct contacts between the parties. We told you it was the third time today we were meeting with Mr. Mammadyarov. Tomorrow it will be the third time we will be in three weeks meeting with Foreign Minister Oskanian. Today we met first with Minister Mammadyarov and then we were received by your President, President Ilham Aliyev. I will say that these meetings were conducted in an excellent climate and in a very open-minded mood, and these meetings are encouraging us to continue our work, to continue our mediation to try to find an agreement on the basic principles for a settlement of the conflict. At this stage, after the Summit meeting in Rambouillet in February and in Bucharest last June, a great deal, a great part of these principles are meeting an understanding between the parties. That of course and as usual, the remaining difficulties are the hardest to solve. And it would be our effort in the following weeks to try to propose to the parties some complements, some precisions to these principles that try to offer them the possibilities to achieve an understanding of these particular difficulties. And we’ll be hardly working because all of our three capitals are absolutely convinced that there is no military option to solve the problem. It’s very clear for us in Washington, Moscow, and Paris – war is not an option. So we have to work.

Question: Trend News Agency: Mr. Merzlyakov, you were talking with confidence about the possibility of a meeting between the two Presidents, and Elmar Mammedyarov told that two issues haven’t been solved yet. And if the two Presidents are meeting one may say that an agreement is in place regarding the above mentioned issues. So would you tell us about outcome of these issues.

Yuri Merzlyakov: I am not prepared right now to discuss the details of a possible meeting between the Presidents. The Presidents themselves adopt their agendas. The co-chairs, as mediators, can propose several issues which they think are very important for that moment, but the Presidents make a decision. In my opinion, if the agenda would depend on us, that would be a continuation of the work related with that document, which was presented at Rambouillet, and then with some changes it was edited in Bucharest and will undergo some changes for future discussion. Once more it would be possible if we were decision makers, but the Presidents themselves will adopt the agenda.

Matthew Bryza (speaking Russian): There is no choice between us, I agree with what Ambassador Merzlyakov said. Sorry.

Bernard Fassier (speaking Russian): Same thing. Just something to underline: in the end of July and beginning of August we have already explained our agenda...(switching to English) we presented the essence of the negotiations, not the details.

Question from Azerbaijan State Television: Question addressed to Matt Bryza. Mr. Bryza, you mentioned after the meeting in the Foreign Affairs Ministry that talks went on in a very constructive manner and Mr. Merzlyakov also added that a meeting between the Foreign Ministers could take place soon. I would like to know what Mr. Bryza meant by ‘constructiveness’ and what concrete results were achieved in the course of the negotiations? And also, when and where will the meeting between the Foreign Ministers take place?

Matthew Bryza: I’m so sorry, I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you because I don’t have a whole lot of details just to offer you. I think you’ll find that there is really absolutely no difference in the position of co-chairs. We are a single team and we deliberate and come up with proposals together as one group.

I don’t think I said ‘very constructive.’ I said ‘constructive.’ A constructive mood. And the details you know. You just have to look on the website and find the statement that we have made as co-chairs this summer where we discussed what the basic principles are and that is what the discussions are about now. If there was constructiveness now, it was about those basic principles that you know about.

Bernard Fassier: And as a joke I would like to add that this constructiveness has not only been stressed by the American and Russian co-chairs, but by the French as well who underlined the open-minded climate.

Question: The journalist recalled that Mr. Merzlyakov said that the meeting between the Ministers of Foreign Relations of Azerbaijan and Armenia would take place in October. Would you please confirm if that is so?

Yuri Merzlyakov: If you wait until tomorrow you’ll know about it.

Matthew Bryza: Before the 31^st.

Question: My question is addressed to the American Co-Chair. Specifically I would like to underline the issue of Lachin and Kelbajar because it seems to be the major disputable point between the sides. And another addition to the question is that the President of Azerbaijan has made a statement in which he said that Azerbaijan is not going to change its position and Azerbaijan is adhering to the principles of territorial integrity, and the return of population to their land of origin, and that Nagorno-Karabakh can be given a status with the highest degree of autonomy. And in the meantime, the President of Armenia has supported the independence of Karabakh with a possibility of joining Armenia. Given the circumstances, how successful do you think negotiations might be and do you believe in the very sincerity of these negotiations?

Matthew Bryza: Of course I believe in the sincerity of the negotiations. I love meeting with my colleagues and friends, but crossing the ocean three times for meetings that are meaningless would not be worth doing.

The reason why I felt some optimism today is not only because of what my colleagues described as a constructive mood and creative thinking. But it’s because an enormous amount of thought, deep thinking, based on historical knowledge and sensitivity to those sorts of difficult questions that you just identified has gone into those basic principles that the co-chairs unveiled before Ý became a co-chair on June 22.

There’s no simple way to resolve this basic dilemma that you identified. And for that reason the basic principles create a unity of nothing more than suggestions that is itself complex. These are suggestions. No President has agreed to anything so don’t think that any President is not adhering to his stated fundamental principles. That would be an absolute mischaracterization. But because these issues are so difficult they require intensive diplomacy and that’s why we are here.

Bernard Fassier: If I may I would like to reinforce what was just said my friend Matt Bryza. I don’t know if you have really the idea about the intensity of the current negotiations. Mid-September we met Vardan Oskanyan in Paris, we were all three to meet Vardan Oskanyan and the day after in London to meet Elmar Mammadyarov. Last Monday and last Tuesday, only one week ago we were together in New York to meet with the two ministers. Wednesday we were all three in Helsinki to meet with the EU Presidency who will here tomorrow in Ministerial Troika. After only three days in our capitals we are back altogether here in Baku. We will be in Yerevan tomorrow. We will be in Khankendi-Stepanakert day after tomorrow. So please understand that neither in the United States, nor in Russia, nor in France do our Governments have enough money to throw through the window for negotiations without any expectations. It is a first element of answer to your question. Second element of answer it is never pertinent to refer to initial declarations of the parties to preamble the results of the final negotiations.

Question: This is the question for Mr. Fassier. Will the issue of changing of the negotiation format be discussed during your visit to Yerevan? And secondly, how would you explain the appearance of the so-called ‘double geography’?

Bernard Fassier: On the first point I was probably not enough clear. If we are so strongly acting in current format it’s no question of changing that format. And about your question, about geography I was just referring to mainly used by the international community maps of geography, using different names in different languages.

[The press conference continued with a short verbal debate over the correct geographical indications between the French Co-Chair and the Ekho newspaper journalist.]

Question: Turan News Agency: There were talks about new additional elements to the negotiations. What do these additional elements include? What kind of issues do these new elements concern: withdrawal of troops or status of Nagorno-Karabakh? And I would like to get back to the issue of return of Kelbadjar and Lachin.

Yuriy Merzlyakov: Let me explain what new means. This is concretization and complementing of the document, which was handed to sides in May during the visit here by the Deputy Foreign Ministers. I, Mr. Fassier and Mr. Bryza’s predecessor were part of this mission. One may call it a new element, on the other hand it may be also called an additional element, but it is only a part of one of the principles, concerning the very basis of the document we were talking about. If we go back to the answer to your second question, while you are talking about Kelbadjar and Lachin these are details, which are discussed at the ministerial level. And it would be premature to talk about this. We are not ready to do that. There is no need to insist, to ask and to besiege each of us with questions in an attempt to clarify. Simply we can’t respond to those questions now. Please understand us.

Question: Public TV: Would you please voice the statement you have mentioned?

Matthew Bryza: I can’t voice it because I haven’t committed it entirely to memory, but there was a written statement -- I think you mean, the one to which I referred you mean, yes, is that which you mean.

I was referring to the written statement of all three of us -- the co-chairs -- that was issued in August. We can certainly get you a copy but it has been published on the websites including our embassies. But the point of it was after the controversy I stood up with my interview on June 22 when the co-chairs presented the basic principles of the OSCE. The point was to demonstrate that we are totally unified on those basic principles that I was talking about. They are our shared suggestions; they are suggestions, nothing more, that we believe offer the most hopeful set of ideas ever in the case of the Minsk Groups mediations and we believe it’s healthy, normal and important to you to know the essence as Ambassador Fassier was saying, the essence of the suggestions so that you can begin to debate them. That’s why we are here.

Question: In one of your statements you said that the creativity of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs has expired. Would you please also tell us about the GUAM initiative to discuss the frozen conflicts in the UNGA. Will it actually affect the negotiations and will it be helpful to the conduct of negotiations?

Matthew Bryza: I’m little confused, because that wasn’t my statement.

I didn’t make that statement. That was actually my predecessor Ambassador Steven Mann and it was at the Permanent Council of the OSCE. But I don’t blame you for being confused because right after Ambassador Mann, Ambassador Fassier, and Ambassador Merzlyakov made their statements, I immediately replaced Steven Mann right at that very moment. I just have a different outlook from any other human being. I’m full of energy, I’d like to inject as much what I think is creativity, we always like to think our thinking is creative, but I have a different outlook, maybe, and I feel there is a constructive attitude that we are getting from the parties and I feel energetic.

Yuri Merzlyakov: You may consider it as a fresh blood injection.

Mattew Bryza: And GUAM, GUAM. Well the GUAM states are not members of the Minsk Group. So, we Minsk Group co-chairs still believe that our basic principles that we have articulated provide the best hope for a fair, for a just, for a lasting settlement. There is no text, no draft text that I know of yet of a GUAM resolution, so there is nothing substantive that I could comment on. But, in principle, a statement that reinforces the basic principles -- and reinforces our belief as truly objective people who really simply care about a settlement – any statement that reinforces those basic principles is something that could be helpful, if it doesn’t reinforce those basic principles, than it is probably not helpful.

Bernard Fassier: I would like to raise two comments. One is a joke about creativity and another one as a kind of piece of advice about geography. About creativity: Matt just have been used that Steve Mann in Vienna was thinking that the creativity of the co-chairs was exhausted. Perhaps it was not only the creativity that was exhausted, but the co-chairs as well after intensive work. But after summer leave our creativity is renewed. So do not be worried more about the creativity. More seriously about geography. Your reactions a few minutes ago is demonstrating how far is the road to restore the confidence between the parties. I referred to a trip we made just in Helsinki, Finland. But I was wrong I would have been saying not only Finland, but Suomi-Finland. You know that in this country you have had a majority of one ethnical origin and minority of another ethnical origin. For centuries the two communities have been battling because one were naming the country Suomi and the other Finland. But today they decided to live together and they naming officially their country Suomi-Finland. So those people who are using the double name of some cities are dreaming to the moment where, here as well both the communities will be able to live together.