YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 23, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. A meeting of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took place in Munich late November 22. The tete-a-tete talk of the two presidents was followed by negotiations with the participation of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. Following the meeting, the OSCE Minsk Group mediators made a statement for reporters, saying that the dicussion of the problem passed in a constructive atmosphere. According to them, for the first time, the discussion involved issues that have never been touched upon previously. The meeting lasted four hours. On the eve of the negotiations the Azerbaijani president had made a strange statement, according to experts. "This meeting must play a decisive role in the negotiation process," Aliyev had declared, stressing: "If the meeting produces no results, our hopes related to negotiations will be exhausted and we will have no option but to prepare for war". After the meeting, the Co-Chairs called on the Azerbaijani president to give up his belligerent rhetoric. In particular, the French Co-Chair Bernard Fassier said that they in Paris, Moscow and Washington see no alternative to the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh problem and they are convinced that a military solution to the problem does not exist. Bernard Fassier said: "We have informed the sides about the definite position of our countries: at this sensitive stage, it is necessary to refrain from any statements that may hinder the negotiations. We clearly underlined that a war can by no means be an alternative to the problem's solution". Radio Liberty reported that the mediators also said that Presidents Sargsyan and Aliyev had commissioned them to continue their work on the resolution of the problem. According to the Co-Chairs, the next meeting of the negotiation process will be held between the foreign ministers of the two countries in early December, prior to the annual meeting of the Council of OSCE Ministers.

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