Today, while in Karabakh, Minsk Group Co-Chair Matthew Bryza responded to the request of reporters to comment on his alleged comments recently made in Baku that Karabakh must return the territories outside of the NKR to Azerbaijan. “I didn’t say such a thing. It was said by certain talented Azeri reporters. As if someone wants to use everything said for the advantage of this or that side. What I said was that if there’s an agreement it will be balanced and must express the interests of both the Azeri and Armenian sides. Yes, we hope that military forces will be removed and that there’ll be a corridor also. These are international norms that are expressed in the Moscow Declaration and that will be included in the agreement. We are not talking about in one year. There are very many elements involved.”

When asked the question what will happen if the NKR doesn’t agree with the agreement Matthew Bryza responded that there can be no treaty without Karabakh’s agreement. The Russian Co-Chair Yuri Merzyaklov picked up on the theme and added that without the participation of the NKR’s representatives there can be no work carried out to fine tune a treaty agreement. Matthew Bryza also spoke of the growing mutual respect between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan and noted, “This doesn’t mean that they’ve come to see eye to eye in general. They really respect one another and it’s a first step. This gives us reason to be a bit optimistic. But it doesn’t mean that we’ll see a great stride forward tomorrow or the next day.”