ALIYEV, KOCHARIAN AGAIN MAKE NO HEADWAY IN NK DISPUTE

The New Anatolian
June 6 2006

Armenian President Robert Kocharian and his Azerbaijani counterpart
Ilham Aliyev failed on Sunday to make progress towards a solution to
the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

A face-to-face meeting between Kocharian and Aliyev was held just
before the Black Sea Dialogue and Partnership Forum which started in
Bucharest, Romania yesterday.

Romanian President Traian Basescu also met with the two presidents
separately on Sunday to discuss how to find a solution to the divided
enclave, Basescu’s office said in a statement.

Talks between Kocharian and Aliyev in France in February ended in
failure as well, despite international mediators’ efforts to help
the leaders finalize the enclave’s status.

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. Sporadic border clashes have grown more
frequent since the breakdown of talks. The lack of a resolution has
hindered development throughout the strategic region.

While Armenians want Nagorno-Karabakh to be independent or annexed to
Armenia, Azerbaijan opposes the idea of giving any territory from the
divided enclave to Armenia, but warmed to the idea of an autonomous,
but not totally independent, status for the region.

The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia has also
created a rift in relations between Ankara and Yerevan.

It was reported last week that secret talks between Turkey and Armenia,
launched after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote a letter to
Armenian President Kocharian suggesting that they set up two committees
to discuss political issues and the Armenian genocide allegations,
have failed to make any headway coming out of their third round. The
latest round reportedly failed after Ankara found Yerevan’s response
to its suggestions “watered down,” sources said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress