ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN TALKS DO NOT RESOLVE ENCLAVE DISPUTE: REPORT

Agence France Presse
August 1, 2008 Friday 4:33 PM GMT

Foreign ministers from Azerbaijan and Armenia said they held
constructive talks Friday in Moscow, but failed to reach an agreement
over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Interfax reported.

"The meeting was useful, we agreed to continue negotiations, but we
are still far from making a breakthrough," said Azerbaijani minister
Elmar Mamediarov, as cited by Interfax.

His Armenian counterpart Edvard Nalbandian said they discussed
proposals to resolve the dispute made by the Minsk group of the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which
includes the United States, Russia and France.

Armenia and Azerbaijan remain locked in a tense stand-off over the
enclave, which ethnic Armenian forces seized during a war in the early
1990s that killed nearly 30,000 people and forced another million on
both sides to flee their homes.

A ceasefire was signed between the two former Soviet republics in
1994 but the dispute remains unresolved after more than a decade of
negotiations, and shootings are common. Up to 16 soldiers were killed
in a clash in June.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a 4,400-square-kilometre (1,700-square-mile)
enclave surrounded by Azerbaijan.