Qatar News Agency
August 24, 2005 Wednesday 9:09 AM EST

RUSSIAN/ARMENIAN & AZERBAIJANI FMS MEET

Doha, August 24

The foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were slated
to meet in Moscow on wednesday for discussions of the conflict over
the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and a planned meeting this week
between the two caucasus nations presidents, the interfax news agency
reported.

Negotiations have intensified noticeably over the past six months,
azerbaijani foreign minister elmar mammadyarov was quoted as saying
tuesday, referring to talks on nagorno-karabakh that have been
mediated by russia, the united states and france.

The bloodshed began after the legislature of the ethnic
armenian-dominated enclave in azerbaijan called in 1988 for the
region to be incorporated into armenia, which like azerbaijan was
then still a soviet republic.

Full-scale military offensives broke out in 1991: thousands were
killed and a million displaced.

A tense cease-fire has held since 1994 but efforts to finally resolve
nagorno-karabakh s status have repeatedly failed.

Armenian president Robert Kocharian and his azerbaijani counterpart
ilham aliev are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of a summit of the
commonwealth of independent states in russia s volga river city of
kazan on friday, interfax said.