ainst-dangerous-use-of-religion-card-in-karabakh-t alks/

US Warns Baku Against `Dangerous’ Use of Religion Card in Karabakh Talks

By Asbarez Staff on May 17th, 2009 and filed under Armenia,
International, Karabakh, News, Top Stories.

PRAGUE (RFE/RL)- U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
European and Eurasian affairs Matthew Bryza has dismissed an
Azerbaijani presidential aide’s suggestion that Washington was playing
favorites in talks to resolve the longstanding dispute over
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Bryza, one of three co-chairmen of the OSCE’s Minsk group, said in an
interview with RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service that `religion has nothing
to do with our mediation effort and, frankly, I think, anyone who
tries to import religion into the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is playing
a very dangerous game.’

Bryza was responding to remarks by the head of Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev’s foreign affairs department, Novruz Mammedov, in which
Mamedov criticized the Minsk co-chairmen and said they were openly
supporting Armenia in a recent meeting.

Mammedov accused mediators of demonstrating `Christian solidarity.’

Bryza repeated his assertion that `significant progress’ was achieved
during a `very positive’ May 7 meeting, which brought together
Azerbaijan’s Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and Minsk
group mediators.