Reuters, UK
Nov 2 2008

Russia’s Medvedev hosts Nagorno-Karabakh talks

Sun Nov 2, 2008 9:05pm IST
By Denis Dyomkin

MEIENDORF CASTLE, Russia (Reuters) – President Dmitry Medvedev sought
to underline Russia’s influence in the Caucasus on Sunday by bringing
together the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia for talks on the
breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s mostly ethnic Armenian population broke away from
Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union
collapsed. It now runs its own affairs, with support from Armenia.

Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and his Azeri counterpart, Ilham
Aliyev, hastily shook hands before Medvedev opened talks at the
Meiendorf Castle official residence outside Moscow.

After the talks, all three presidents signed a declaration.

"The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to continue work
… on agreeing a political resolution of the conflict in
Nagorno-Karabakh," according to a copy of the declaration, which was
read out by Medvedev. Aliyev and Sarksyan made no comment.

The war between Russia and Georgia in August appears to have lent new
impetus to diplomatic efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, with Russia trying to show it can act as a broker for
"frozen conflicts" in the former Soviet Union.

Georgia sent troops and tanks in August to retake the pro-Russian
rebel region of South Ossetia, which threw off Tbilisi’s rule in
1991-92.

Russia responded with a powerful counter-strike that drove the
Georgian army out of South Ossetia. Moscow then recognised South
Ossetia and another of Georgia’s rebel regions as independent states,
provoking international condemnation.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as within Azerbaijan’s
borders.

Armenia supports Nagorno-Karabakh’s split from Azerbaijan and provides
assistance though no state — including Armenia — has recognised it
as an independent state.

Fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the area ended in 1994
when a ceasefire was signed. The two sides are still technically at
war because no peace treaty has been signed.

About 35,000 people on both sides were killed in the fighting. More
than a million people were forced to flee their homes and almost all
are still unable to return.

Along with France and the United States, Russia is one of the
co-chairs of the Minsk Group, which is mandated to act as an
intermediary in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. But it is unusual for a
head of state to act directly as mediator.

The presidents "discussed the perspectives for the resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict via political means, through the
continuation of direct dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia with
the mediation of Russia, the United States and France as the
co-chairmen of the Minsk group."

Armenia is considered Russia’s strongest ally in the Caucasus, but
Yerevan is also being courted by the United States and European Union
in a struggle with Moscow for influence over a transit route for oil
and gas from the Caspian.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge)