By Hrach Melkumian
President Robert Kocharian said on Friday that he will likely meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Heydar Aliev soon to discuss the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
“It is likely that there will be a meeting of the two presidents in the near future,” he told reporters after inspecting newly built apartment blocks in Yerevan. “The dates are still being ascertained.”
Kocharian made the announcement when asked by RFE/RL to comment on the results of this week’s talks near Prague between Armenian and Azerbaijani presidential envoys which were mediated by French, Russian and U.S. diplomats. The Armenian side was represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Tatul Markarian.
Kocharian said he has been briefed by Markarian on the three-day talks and has “nothing new to say.” “A new process has started, and I think that some time is needed for assessing that process,” he said.
The Prague meeting ended on Wednesday without an apparent breakthrough. The participants said in a brief statement that they had "useful discussions" but did not give details.
Aliev and Kocharian have met on numerous occasions over the past three years in a bid to agree a long-awaited solution to the Karabakh conflict. The parties seemed as close to a peace deal as ever in the spring of last year. But expectations of a breakthrough in the decade-long negotiations failed to materialize.