RUSSIA, TURKEY TO GIVE COMPREHENSIVE SUPPORT TO KARABAKH SETTLEMENT – PUTIN

Interfax
May 18 2009
Russia

Russia and Turkey will jointly promote the Karabakh settlement, Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin told a Saturday press conference after the
Sochi negotiations with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"The conflicting parties must elaborate a compromise. All the other
states, which assist the achievement of this compromise, must limit
their activity to mediation and guarantees of the fulfillment of
bilateral agreements," Putin said.

"Turkey and Russia want such problems to be resolved and pledge
comprehensive assistance to the settlement process," Putin said.

The complicated Karabakh problem is rooted in the past, Putin said.

He ignored a Turkish journalist’s comment, which suggested that
the Karabakh settlement had been slow allegedly because of the low
efficiency of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Turkey and Russia "are destined to work on regional security together,"
Erdogan said.

"I am confident that our joint efforts can promote the settlement of
the Armenian-Azeri conflict, the Middle East problem and the Cypriot
problem," he said.