USA backs Baku-Yerevan dialog on Nagorno Karabakh – diplomat
By Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 15, 2004 Wednesday 12:26 AM Eastern Time

YEREVAN, September 15 — The new ambassador of the United States to
Armenia, John Evans, said at his first press conference on Wednesday
that the USA supports the concept of a dialogue between Yerevan
and Baku on the settlement of a conflict around the mostly Armenian
populated Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno Karabakh.

The ambassador said the USA together with Russia and France works
in the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh. He reminded the press
conference that the USA had contributed to a meeting of Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan and Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev,
scheduled in Astana on Wednesday. It has also contributed to talks
between the two countries’ foreign ministers.

Itar-Tass reports from Astana that Russian President Vladimir
Putin is expected to take part in Astana late on Wednesday in a
three-party meeting with the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders. “The
new three-way meting was initiated by Moscow,” a source from the
Kremlin administration told Tass.

Kremlin proceeds from the fact that the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents should “come to terms with each other, while Russia
could “make its contribution to the development and expansion of
the dialogue”.

Kremlin sources do not rule out that Kocharyan and Aliyev may hold
tete-a-tete talks in Astana.