‘NEW PAGE’ IN ENCLAVE TALKS

The Moscow Times
News in Brief
10 July 2009

YEREVAN, Armenia – The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet
in Russia on July 17 and could open a "new page" in negotiations over
breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh, the French mediator said.

The meeting will be the sixth between Azeri President Ilham Aliyev
and Armenia’s Serzh Sargsyan in little over a year.

French envoy Bernard Fassier said the intensity of talks was
"unprecedented" in the 15 years since the ceasefire.

"We are now at a very important stage of the negotiation process,"
Fassier told a news conference Wednesday in Yerevan.

He said he hoped the meeting would "open a new page in the
negotiations."

A trio of French, Russian and U.S. mediators under the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe say they are close to a breakthrough
on the fate of the enclave.