В"I do not believe that the Prague Process is dead. I believe that we still have the hope and the possibility to reach an agreement, but the timeline is very short, the OSCE Minsk Group American co-chair Steven Mann said in a statement in his interview with AzerTadj, Trend reports.
Speaking about the negotiations in Rambouillet the Ambassador stated, the both sides had made a lot of progress, but along with this, there are still some very serious issues that are not solved. В"But it was our expectation that Rambouillet was the point to move ahead and close those gaps. It didnt happen. It was a disappointment he was quoted as saying.
According to him, the both sides to the conflict are represented by serious and dedicated people. So I still have the hope that we can move in the time we have remaining to us. What do I mean by the time remaining to us? I think, factually as we get further into the year then we get closer to the political seasons in each country with parliamentary and presidential elections coming up in Armenia and in Azerbaijan. It is just a simple fact that it is difficult if not impossible for governments to move forward when they have major internal political debate going on. So the belief of co-chairs is that now is the time in which we must pull on agreement. If there is anyone who wants to disagree with us, certainly they are welcome to advance that point of view. But I think, factually everyone who looks seriously at the Karabakh conflict realizes that we are in a period where we do need decisions. If we don not manage to close the gaps in 2006, we are looking at a number of years before the sides achieve this kind of deep negotiations, the diplomat said.
Speaking about the forthcoming talks in Washigton, Steven Mann noted, it is one of the regular consultations of co-chairs. We meet sometimes in Moscow, Paris or Vienna. This time the co-chairs and Ambassador Kasprzyk are coming to Washington. This meeting will be our opportunity to more deeply evaluate what happened at Rambouillet and to look at what the next steps in the process might be, he said.
Steven Mann underlined the necessity for compromises from the both sides. I think, we are at a point when we need good will of each nation, not just the ministers to negotiate, but the will of each nation to say lets make this situation much better, the American co-chair thinks.