Ekho, Azerbaijan
Feb 8 2008

Kosovo cannot be precedent for Karabakh – Azeri deputy speaker

A deputy speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament has said that Kosovo’s
possible secession from Serbia cannot set a precedent for other
breakaway regions, including Nagornyy Karabakh, the Azerbaijani
newspaper Ekho has reported.

"We believe that issues like [Kosovo] should be resolved within the
framework of the territorial integrity of states," Bahar Muradova
said in an interview with Ekho. "However, even if this principle is
not observed in the resolution of the Kosovo issue, if others methods
are used, this should not serve as a precedent for other problems,"
she said.

Nagornyy Karabakh, which is home to nearly 100,000 ethnic Armenians,
broke away from Azerbaijan following a separatist war in the early
1990s. The war claimed over 30,000 lives and displaced more than a
million people.

The region’s political status remains unresolved as international
efforts to mediate a peaceful settlement of the conflict have yielded
no tangible results.