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Baku, 13 April: "The talks in Key West were confidential in character, but I do not believe that Azerbaijan could have made unilateral concessions," the first vice-president of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic [and Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev's son], Ilham Aliyev, has told MPA when commenting on Armenian President Robert Kocharyan's statement about Baku's alleged readiness for unilateral concessions. Ilham Aliyev said that concessions must be bilateral. He did not say what kind of compromises might be made, citing unawareness of this issue. Ilham Aliyev also declined to comment on the territorial swap option in the conflict settlement without learning these proposals. However, he did not altogether rule out the possibility of discussing this option together with the other options. Ilham Aliyev said that Azerbaijan had repeatedly stated its readiness to grant autonomous status to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is willing to discuss different options, including the model of Tatarstan's autonomy. Speaking about the possibility of Russia's
activation in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, Ilham
Aliyev said that Russia must act on the same level as the other
cochairmen of the [OSCE] Minsk Group. He said that recent events
had demonstrated Moscow's desire to play a more active role in
the process, and that Azerbaijan welcomed this. Touching upon
the possibility of Iran's involvement in the negotiations process,
Ilham Aliyev said that the negotiations were being held and should
be held within the Minsk Group format, but that constructive
proposals by any country might be discussed simultaneously. Commenting
on opposition threats to hold protest actions if a compromise
peace was concluded, Ilham Aliyev said that such statements had
the political objective of satisfying their [opposition's] own
interests. |
