LITTLE PROGRESS MADE AT KARABAKH TALKS – AZERBAIJAN FM

RIA Novosti, Russia
June 6 2006

BAKU, June 6 (RIA Novosti) – The latest round of Azerbaijani-Armenian
presidential talks over Nagorny Karabakh has failed to bring the sides
any closer to a resolution of the long-standing dispute, Azerbaijan’s
foreign minister said Tuesday.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart,
Robert Kocharyan, discussed the conflict on the sidelines of a Black
Sea summit in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, June 4 and 5. Their
previous round of talks in France in February also ended in failure,
despite the involvement of international mediators.

“I cannot say that much progress was made at the [Bucharest] talks,”
Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov told reporters following the
meeting. He said it was important, however, that the sides continued
working toward a negotiated solution.

Another senior Azerbaijani official, in charge of international
relations in the Aliyev administration, told a news conference that
the Aliyev-Kocharyan talks had been taking place “in a very tense
atmosphere.”

Novruz Mamedov said the two leaders may meet up for further talks
before the end of this year.

The talks in Bucharest came just a week after Armenia and Azerbaijan
both claimed fatalities in border clashes near Nagorny Karabakh
and accused each other of breaching a 1994 ceasefire agreement. The
ceasefire ended six years of hostilities that broke out after the
Azerbaijani region with a largely Armenian population proclaimed
independence from Azerbaijan in a bid to join Armenia.

The conflict claimed 30,000 lives on both sides between 1988 and 1994,
and another hundred since the ceasefire was brokered.