Azerbaijani president refuses to attend CIS summit alongside Armenian leader

The Associated Press
05/02/05 11:58 EDT

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) – Azerbaijan’s president said Monday he would
not participate in an upcoming summit of former Soviet republics
because of the planned attendance of his Armenian counterpart.

Ilham Aliev said in a statement that it was inappropriate for
Azerbaijani officials to attend the May 8 summit of Commonwealth
of Independent States summit in Moscow given the hostile state of
relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The statement from the presidential press service also noted that
many Azerbaijanis consider May 8 a day of mourning, due to a key
battle during the six-year war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over
the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The statement said that Aliev, however, would attend the May 9
ceremonies in Moscow marking the 60th anniversary of Allied victory
over Nazi Germany.

Nagorno-Karabakh – a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan – has been
under the control of ethnic Armenians since the fighting, which killed
an estimated 30,000 people and drove a million from their homes before
a cease-fire was signed in 1994.

The enclave’s political status has not been determined, and shooting
breaks out frequently between the two sides across a demilitarized
buffer zone. Both sides routinely take prisoners and exchange them
via the Red Cross and other humanitarian groups.

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a loose grouping of former
Soviet republics.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress