ARMENIAN PRESIDENT AND EU REPRESENTATIVE DISCUSSED KARABAKH ISSUE AND RA-TURKISH PROCESS
PanARMENIAN.Net
21.01.2010 19:09 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has received EU
representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby.
Discussion between officials focused on issues included in Armenia-EU
agenda, presidential press service reported.
Peter Semneby told Armenian leader that European Union is currently
implementing active reforms.
Parties also exchanged views over regional processes, particularly
Karabakh settlement talks and Armenian-Turkish relations.
The Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) Republic (NKR) is a de facto independent
republic located in the South Caucasus, bordering by Azerbaijan to
the north and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia to the west.
After the Soviet Union established control over the area, in 1923
it formed the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the
Azerbaijan SSR. In the final years of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan
launched an ethnic cleansing which resulted in the Karabakh War that
was fought from 1991 to 1994.
Since the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several
regions of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the
control of Nagorno Karabakh defense army.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have since been holding peace talks mediated
by the OSCE Minsk Group.
The Protocols aimed at normalization of bilateral ties and opening of
the border between Armenia and Turkey were signed in Zurich by Armenian
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet
Davutoglu on October 10, 2009, after a series of diplomatic talks
held through Swiss mediation.
On January 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of
Armenia found the protocols conformable to the country’s Organic Law.
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member
states, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration,
the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993
upon the foundations of the European Communities.
On 1 December 2009 the Lisbon Treaty came into force after a protracted
and controversial birth. This reformed many aspects of the EU but in
particular created a permanent President of the European Council,
the first of which is Herman van Rompuy, and a strengthened High
Representative, Catherine Ashton.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
