AZERBAIJAN POSTPONES US VISIT OVER WORDING ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 30 2007
Azerbaijan said Sunday that it postponed a high-level visit to the
United States because of what it claimed were changes in US wording
describing its dispute with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh
territory.
The Caspian Sea coast nation’s Foreign Ministry warned that the
issue "may become a serious impediment to further security-related
cooperation between our countries" — a possible reference to
Azerbaijan’s contribution to the US-led coalition in Iraq. The
government postponed the two-day visit for security talks, which
was to have started today and to have included high-level officials
from several ministries, because of "changes to the provisions"
on Nagorno-Karabakh in the State Department’s 2006 report on human
rights abroad, a ministry statement said. The changes "distort the
essence of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict" and their
introduction "puts in doubt the US position of the ‘honest broker’
in the resolution of the conflict," the statement said. It did not
offer details, and officials were not available for comment after the
statement’s release. Nagorno-Karabakh is a territory inside Azerbaijan
that has been controlled by Armenian and local ethnic Armenian forces
since a six-year war that ended in 1994. Tension remains high between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, ex-Soviet republics in the Caucasus. There
was speculation in Azerbaijan that the government was angry at the
absence, in the State Department’s country report on human rights
practices in Armenia, of a statement saying that Nagorno-Karabakh is
Azerbaijani territory occupied by Armenia.