BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 30. The date of the planned negotiations between the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Kazakhstan has not been set yet, as Yerevan has not yet responded to the proposal, Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, Alibek Bakayev told reporters, Trend reports.
He made the remark during the 3rd session of the Arab Economic Cooperation Forum with Central Asian countries and the Republic of Azerbaijan.
"As far as I know, the date of the meeting has not been determined yet, because no response has been received from all future participants. So far, Armenia has not given its consent, but we expect that these negotiations will take place," Bakayev said.
Meanwhile, spokesperson for the Kazakhstani Foreign Ministry Smadiyarov confirmed at a briefing in Astana that such negotiations are indeed planned in Almaty and the Kazakhstani side is now in touch with its counterparts in Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, according to him, the negotiations are supposed to be held exclusively between these two sides; there is no question of Astana's mediation.
According to him, Kazakhstan, not by chance, offered Baku and Yerevan to be a platform for these negotiations; its mediation role in solving the Karabakh problem has been known since the 1990s of the last century.
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