OSCE CALLS ON ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN TO WORK FOR PEACE

Agence France Presse
June 10, 2008 Tuesday 8:46 AM GMT
HELSINKI

Security watchdog OSCE called late Monday on Armenia and Azerbaijan
to peacefully resolve their dispute over the separatist region of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

"There is no alternative to a peaceful resolution of the conflict,"
Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, whose country holds the
rotating chairmanship in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, said in a statement.

Stubb’s comment came after he was briefed in Helsinki Monday by the
OSCE Minsk group members, which works for peace in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Despite a 1994 ceasefire, Armenia and Azerbaijan remain officially
at war over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which
broke away from Azerbaijani control during a war in the early 1990s.

"I encourage Armenia and Azerbaijan to make full use of the Minsk
Group Co-Chairs’ facilitation and seriously consider the proposal
for the basic principles of resolving the conflict," Stubb said.