US, Russia plan to discuss “frozen conflicts” in Transcaucasia
By Pavel Vanichkin

ITAR-TASS News Agency
June 17, 2005 Friday 3:07 AM Eastern Time

WASHINGTON, June 17 — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans
to discuss the situation in Transcaucasia at a meeting with Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the G-8 foreign
ministers’ meeting in London next week.

Rice told a press conference on Thursday she would discuss with Lavrov
the so-called “frozen conflicts,” including the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The U.S. Secretary of State said solving such conflicts would improve
the region’s economy. She said a number of positive changes had taken
place in Transcaucasia recently, among which she named the Moscow and
Tbilisi agreement on the withdrawal of Russian troops and military
hardware from Georgia by the end of 2008.