USA UPBEAT ON PEACE IN KARABAKH

Baku Sun, Azerbaijan
May 25 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) – Two State Department officials said Tuesday they
were optimistic about the possibility of a peace agreement between
Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The two sides are closer to an agreement than they have been in the
past," said Matthew Bryza, a State Department European affairs expert.

He spoke to a meeting of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus,
which was convened to examine humanitarian suffering in the region
a dozen years after the war over Nagorno-Karabakh ended. Bryza said
the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments will have to show political
courage to bridge the final gaps.

"We look at these next couple of months as a real window of
opportunity," he said. A second State Department official, David
Appleton, said one sign of progress is that the Azerbaijani government
is asking the U.N. refugee agency to draw up plans for the return of
the displaced to their homes once a peace agreement is signed.

Baroness Caroline Cox, a pro-Armenian member of the British House of
Lords, who has visited Nagorno-Karabakh 60 times, criticized the United
Nations for refusing to provide relief to the people of the enclave
under its policy of not doing work in "unrecognized territories."

She said the policy deprives the "suffering people" of the region of
much-needed aid.

"U.N. organizations working in Azerbaijan have been very vocal on
behalf of displaced Azeris but have been silent about Armenians
suffering at least as severely," the baroness said.