Azerbaijan’s leader warns talks with Armenia over disputed enclave going nowhere

AP Worldstream; Jun 23, 2006

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev on Friday warned that talks with
Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh were going
nowhere and vowed to recover the territory.

"The negotiations are taking place in different frameworks but these
talks are ineffective because we can’t obtain a result," Aliev said,
accusing Armenia of dragging out the negotiating process.

"Azerbaijan will restore its territorial integrity, either through
peaceful or military means," he said.

The two former Soviet Caucasus nations’ presidents made two failed
efforts this year to resolve the status of the disputed enclave.

Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan but populated mostly by ethnic
Armenians, who have run it and seven contiguous districts since an
uneasy 1994 cease-fire ended six years of full-scale war.

Sporadic border clashes regularly break out. The unresolved conflict
has held up development in the strategic region.