Bucharest Daily News, Romania
May 28 2006

Armenian, Azerbaijani presidents to meet in Romania

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Romania,
possibly next month, government spokesmen said Friday, for talks
aimed at resolving a nearly two-decade conflict over the disputed
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Government officials in Yerevan, Armenia and the Azerbaijani capital
Baku both confirmed that Armenian President Robert Kocharian and his
Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliev, were intending to meet, but
gave no further details.
The two Caucasus leaders are expected to attend a forum for Black Sea
countries scheduled for June 5 in the Romanian capital.
Talks held between the two presidents in France in February ended in
failure, despite international mediators’ efforts to push the leaders
to resolve Nagorno-Karabakh’s status.
The enclave is inside Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic
Armenians, who have administrated it since an uneasy 1994 cease-fire
ended six years of full-scale fighting.
Sporadic border clashes have grown more frequent since the breakdown
of talks and the lack of resolution has hindered development
throughout the strategic Caucasus region.