Elmar Mammadyarov

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, mediating a settlement to the conflict, will present to Mammadyarov Armenia's  proposals on contentious points in the Karabakh conflict settlement, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov said today.

Armenia submitted the proposals in line with a decision made by the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian presidents in Sochi on 25 January. Elmar Mammadyarov said yesterday that Azerbaijan would not submit any proposals in addition to those it made during a December 2009 OSCE meeting.

Polukhov said that the Azerbaijani foreign minister would also meet the French president's foreign policy adviser in Paris.

'They will discuss bilateral relations, events ongoing in the region and the Karabakh conflict,' Polukhov said.

Mammadyarov left for Paris today.

Meanwhile, the Armenian president's national security adviser, Garnik Isagulyan, has said that the Madrid principles for a Karabakh settlement can be changed before a final peace agreement is reached.

'The Madrid principles are a document taken as a basis for negotiations. This does not mean that everything written in this document cannot be changed later. Many documents have been taken as a basis but they have later been changed,' Isagulyan told reporters today. He said the document can be changed dozens of times until a binding agreement is signed by both parties.

He said that no agreement had been reached on the return to Azerbaijan of five districts, forming a cordon sanitaire around Karabakh. Armenian opposition claims to the contrary are a signal to foreign powers that if they get into office they will return the districts, Isagulyan said.

He said that Armenia did not have to return land, as it had never borrowed land from anyone. The issue of land should be discussed with the Nagorno-Karabakh republic, he said.

1 news.az  News-Armenia