OSCE PLANS NEW ARMENIAN-AZERI TALKS ON KARABAKH

Reuters, UK
April 13 2006

Apr 13, 2006 – YEREVAN (Reuters) – The Organization For Security and
Cooperation in Europe said on Thursday it hoped to arrange talks in
June or July between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the
disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The territory, scene of a conflict between the two sides in which
about 35,000 people were killed, has a major pipeline linking Caspian
Sea oil fields to world markets.

In February, talks between Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, whose countries stand at the crossroads
between Europe and Asia, ended without agreement.

“We want to again create the conditions for a meeting of the
presidents,” Bernard Fassier, a French mediator from the Organization
For Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), told reporters after
visiting Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“It would be good if it was possible to organize a meeting in June.

If not, then we hope it will be possible to organize a meeting in
July,” said Fassier.

French, U.S. and Russian mediators from the so-called Minsk Group of
the OSCE were involved in the February talks.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous territory roughly half the size of
the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, has for decades soured relations
between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Sporadic clashes inside the territory between Azeri and ethnic Armenian
irregulars began in 1988 in the Soviet era, escalating by 1992 into
full-scale hostilities between Azeri and Armenian troops.

Hundreds of thousands fled and most have been unable to return to
the territory, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled
by Armenian separatists since the fighting.