Associated Press Worldstream
January 4, 2005 Tuesday 10:02 AM Eastern Time

Azerbaijani president says negotiations over disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave are improving

BAKU, Azerbaijan

President Ilham Aliyev said efforts to resolve the long-running
conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh are entering a new, positive, phase, the
presidential press service reported Tuesday.

Aliyev told a meeting of the country’s Security Council on Monday
that the internationally brokered talks over the enclave’s status had
entered a “new stage.”

“Of course, I don’t want to say that this process already has found a
resolution. Negotiations are ongoing, and we are using all means to
ensure these negotiations develop positively for us,” Aliyev said,
according to his press service. “We have succeeded in attracting the
wider international community, discussions of this question in
different organization even though the Armenians strongly object to
this.”

Ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia drove Azerbaijani troops out
of Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s in a six-year war that killed some
30,000 people and sent 1 million fleeing from their homes.

A cease-fire was reached in 1994, but the enclave’s final status has
not been determined. The unresolved dispute damages both nations’
economies and the threat of renewed war continues to hang over the
region.

The two countries have been involved in an international effort to
reach a settlement, sponsored by the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe and led by Russia, France and the United
States.

Azerbaijan refuses to negotiate with Nagorno-Karabakh officials.