Agence France Presse — English
May 25, 2007 Friday 4:14 PM GMT

Armenia, Azerbaijan to hold Karabakh talks in June

BAKU, May 25 2007

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to hold talks in
Russia on June 9 on the status of the disputed region of Nagorny
Karabakh, diplomats from the OSCE Minsk Group said Friday.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev will meet on the sidelines of an informal summit of leaders of
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Saint Petersburg,
officials said.

The announcement was made by Bernard Fassier and Yury Merzlyakov, two
co-chairs of the Minsk Group, a diplomatic club aimed at resolving
the conflict, during a press conference in the Azerbaijani capital
Baku.

Armenian forces seized Nagorny Karabakh and some surrounding
territory from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that
claimed an estimated 35,000 lives and forced about a million people
on both sides to flee their homes.

A ceasefire was signed in 1994, but the two countries have cut direct
economic and transport links and failed to negotiate a settlement on
the status of the enclave.

The Minsk Group was created in 1992 by the Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to bring about a peaceful resolution
to the conflict. It is co-chaired by France, Russia and the United
States.