Interfax, Russia
April 15 2006

Karabakh not a drug transit route – Stepanakert

STEPANAKERT. April 15 (Interfax) – Stepanakert has criticized the
naming of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh as a
territory used for illegal drug transit in a U.S. Department of State
report.

Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosian and police chief
Armen Isagulov sent a letter to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for
the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Anne Patterson, in which they declared that “Nagorno-Karabakh is not
a transit route for illegal drugs.”

The Department of State’s International Narcotics Control Strategy
Report (INCSR) for 2006 “again identifies Nagorno-Karabakh and
territories it controls as a drug transit route, unlike in the
previous years, when explanations given by the Nagorno-Karabakh
authorities helped reach understanding on this issue,” the
Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Ministry told Interfax.

“We would like to once again assure you with all die responsibility
that Nagorno-Karabakh is not a drug transit route, not only due to
the absence of a developed transportation and communication system
resulting from Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade of the republic, but
primarily thanks to efficient preemptive efforts by Nagorno-Karabakh
law enforcement agencies,” Petrosian and Isagulov said in the letter.

“This incorrect information was given by Azerbaijan, which has made
the falsification and discrediting of Armenia an element of its
policy,” they said.

The authors regretted that “the report cites unconfirmed information,
while repeated calls by the Karabakh authorities on putting together
an independent monitoring team and sending it to Nagorno- Karabakh
with a fact-finding mission have not yet evoked a response from the
relevant international institutions.”

Nagorno-Karabakh would welcome such a monitoring team capable of
drawing an independent and objective conclusion, they said. va