ARMENIA BACKS OUT OF CIS MEETING IN AZERBAIJAN
Radio Free Europe, Czech Rep.
May 30 2006
May 30, 2006 — Armenian officials are refusing to attend an upcoming
meeting of defense ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) in neighboring Azerbaijan.
A spokesman for Armenia’s Defense Ministry says Azerbaijani officials
cannot guarantee their safety.
Fourteen years after a cease-fire was agreed, Azerbaijan and Armenia
remain at loggerheads about the final status of the disputed region
of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been ruled by ethnic Armenians since
a separatist war in the early 1990s.
The meeting of CIS ministers begins on May 31.