ASTRAKHAN. Oct 27 (Interfax) - A negotiated draft of the so-called basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement will hopefully be forged for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's summit to be held in Astana on December 1 and 2, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said.
Medvedev told reporters in Astrakhan after talks with the Azeri and Armenian leaders that an instruction to finalize the draft in the coming month will be given to the foreign ministers of the three states.
"The remaining issues related to the so-called general principles of settlement, which must make the backbone of a peace treaty, have been discussed today," he said.
"We have walked a certain way, which fills us with the hope that if the parties work in earnest in the coming month - we will instruct our foreign ministers to do so - we would be able to prepare a negotiated draft of basic settlement principles for the OSCE summit," Medvedev said.
"There are quite a few queries to clear, but the parties want to settle textual disagreements," he said.
"The issue of peace treaty and general settlement [of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict] has always been discussed in talks between the Russian, Azeri and Armenian leaders since the first such meeting in November 2008 near Moscow [when the Moscow Declaration was signed]," he said.
"Russia will make further efforts. We think a result may be achieved. This inspires certain moderate optimism, but the bulk of the work has yet to be done," Medvedev said.