NAGORNO-KARABAKH PROGRESS
Written by Brussels journalist David Ferguson
Euro-reporters.com, Belgium
Sept 6 2005
“Resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can be achieved only
through political dialog,” said OSCE Chairman Dimitrij Rupel.
Speaking in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, Rupel, currently Slovenian
Foreign Minister, saw ‘signs of progress’ on Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
The armed spat over Nagorno-Karabakh that broke out between Armenia
and Azerbaijan in the dying days of the Soviet Union, leaving 30,000
dead, is far from frozen. By the time a ceasefire was brokered in
1994, the conflict had left significant Azeri territories occupied
and over a million displaced people in miserable conditions on both
sides. “Several people are killed along the line-of-contact every
year,” said Swedish MP Goran Lennmarker, who, in 2002, was appointed
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Special Representative on the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict.
However, in Baku on Monday, OSCE Chair Rupel praised recent progress
and high-level contacts between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Both countries
presidents also met on 27 August at the Commonwealth of Independent
States’ Summit in Kazan, Russia. The OSCE’s Minsk group on the
conflict has been active also bringing together Armenian and Azeri
foreign ministers.
“I hope that everything possible will be done in order to prevent
any increase of tension along the front lines,” said Rupel, who also
met Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and other high level officials.
Azerbaijan will hold parliamentary elections in November, although
opposition parties are still complaining of controlled media and fear
a repeat of the electoral fraud seen in October 2003.
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