“It is pretty unusual that the peace process should not be influenced by elections. A new election cycle is expected to start in 2007 and it will last approximately three years. In other words, there will be elections in one or the other country [during that period]. We know by experience that any election slows down the peace process as it happened in 2003 [when there were presidential polls in Azerbaijan]. Sometimes, it even brings it to a halt for quite some time.”
“Everything depends on both objective reasons and subjective factors. It looks like all objective conditions [for a breakthrough] are here. But we have to take into account the subjective aspects of the issue, which are the [political] will of both parties and their readiness to prepare their public opinions with a view to solving this conflict peacefully. With this respect there is still a lot or work to be done.”
“We must now find opportunities to revive the process, including [through] contacts between the co-chairs and the presidents and [through] new meetings -- rather a new meeting -- between the two presidents so that they could continue discussing. But we're now in a rather delicate phase and we haven't even started discussing [that possibility]. It's even difficult to talk to the parties about that because there is no international meeting scheduled [in the near future] that both two presidents could attend.”
