INTERNATIONAL MEDIATORS URGE ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN TO STRIKE DEAL ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH
AP Worldstream
May 24, 2006
International mediators Wednesday urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to
reach a compromise over the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
Envoys from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s
so-called Minsk Group of mediators, which include France, Russia and
the United States, held talks Wednesday with Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliev.
A statement said that the mediators, due to hold talks with Armenian
President Robert Kocharian on Thursday, had staged the diplomatic
mission “because of the need to promote a peaceful settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”
The statement added that “now is the time for the sides to reach
agreement on the basic principles of a settlement.”
Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan, but populated mostly by ethnic
Armenians, who have run it since an uneasy 1994 cease-fire ended
six years of full-scale war in which 30,000 people were killed and
1 million made refugees.
Sporadic border clashes continue to claim victims, while peace talks
have stalled.
Aliev and Kocharian in February failed to reach agreement after
two days of talks in France on how to end the conflict. Since then,
violence has risen sharply, and the two countries’ presidents have
traded increasingly bellicose statements.
The lack of final resolution over the enclave’s status has long tied
up investment in the strategic, oil-rich Caucasus region.
