RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, Czech Republic
Aug 27 2005

Azerbaijan, Armenia Leaders To Discuss Nagorno-Karabakh

(RFE/RL)
27 August 2005 — The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia are expected
to meet today to discuss the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The talks between Presidents Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan and Robert
Kocharian of Armenia are due to be held in Kazan, in the Russian
republic of Tatarstan, where leaders of the Commonwealth of
Independent States held a summit yesterday.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held separate telephone
talks this week with Aliev and Kocharian and urged them to “make the
compromises necessary” to reach a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly ethnic Armenian enclave, broke away from
Soviet Azerbaijan in 1988, sparking a war in which some 35,000 people
were killed. A cease-fire took effect in 1994.