KARABAKH SOLUTION NEEDED ‘AS SOON AS POSSIBLE’: US

Agence France Presse
October 17, 2008 Friday 5:11 PM GMT

Armenia and Azerbaijan need to resolve their conflict over the
breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh "as soon as possible" following
August’s war in neighbouring Georgia, a senior US envoy said Friday.

US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told reporters on a visit
to the Armenian capital Yerevan that the war between Georgia and Russia
had highlighted the dangers of unresolved conflicts in the region.

"We need to solve regional problems," he said. "We need to push for
a solution (to the Karabakh dispute) as soon as possible."

Fried said negotiations over Karabakh should continue through the Minsk
Group, which is under the auspices of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe and heads efforts to find a solution to
the conflict.

The group is co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States.

Armenia and Azerbaijan remain in a tense stand-off over Karabakh,
which ethnic Armenian forces seized in the early 1990s in a war 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 between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces
in the region are common.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress