Interfax, Russia
Aug 7 2009
U.S. diplomat, Armenian president discuss Karabakh
YEREVAN Aug 7
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and U.S. co-chairman of the OSCE
Minsk Group Matthew Bryza met in Yerevan on Friday to discuss the
Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process.
Sargsyan and Bryza exchanged their views on the conflict resolution
process, the Armenian president’s press office told Interfax.
The authorities in Baku lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven
neighboring districts during a bloody conflict between Azerbaijan and
Armenia in the 1990s. As a result of the conflict, up to one million
Azeri people had to leave their homes. The UN Security Council adopted
resolutions denouncing the occupation of the Azeri territories and
ordering Armenia’s armed forces to leave the region.
The OSCE Minsk Group, which includes representative of the U.S.,
Russia and France, has been working to help Armenia and Azerbaijan
find a solution to the conflict.
Baku insists that the conflict be resolved gradually: at the first
stage Armenia will withdraw its troops from all seven occupied Azeri
territories around Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forced migrants will
return there. Economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Armenia
could also resume at this stage.
At the second stage the parties will discuss the political status of
Nagorno-Karabakh proper. A referendum has been suggested as one of the
possible ways to determine the status. Baku is against any attempt to
separate Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan and offers a high degree of
autonomy to this region.
Armenia, for its part, offers to resolve the issue by trading seven
occupied areas of Azerbaijan outside Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for
the enclave’s security. Yerevan says the return of the areas and the
Nagorno-Karabakh status are the issues that must be decided
concurrently.