Baku Sun, Azerbaijan
May 23 2005
Karabakh talks start taking shape
David McHugh
WARSAW – Azeri President Ilham Aliev has met with Armenian and
Turkish leaders at separate talks on the disputed enclave of
Karabakh, officials said early this week.
Aliev met first with Armenian President Robert Kocharian, followed by
a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is
Azerbaijan’s closest ally in the region and the two countries often
coordinate steps with each other.
The meetings, which took place late Sunday and early Monday ahead of
the two-day Council of Europe summit, focused on the presence of
Armenian troops in Karabakh, a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan
that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian separatists since
the early 1990s, following hostilities that killed an estimated
30,000 people.
`I hope that negotiations will bring results,’ Aliyev was quoted as
saying by the Interfax-Azerbaijan news agency. `The positions are
well known. The issue has been discussed for years, and each side has
its own position. These positions have been discussed again.’
A cease-fire was signed in 1994, but the enclave’s final political
status has not been determined and shooting breaks out frequently
between the two sides, which face off across a demilitarized buffer
zone.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mamadyarov said on private ATV
television Monday that one focus of the talks was possible Armenian
withdrawal from seven occupied regions adjacent to the former
autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh. `They agree to return all the regions
but they’re thinking about when,’ he said.
Speaking at the summit, Armenian President Kocharian said his country
was looking `to find ways of including the de-facto established
Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh into the European process of
integration.’
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said in his speech that `Armenia is
not only occupying parts of Azerbaijan, it also refuses to recognize
its border with Turkey and has historic claims on some parts of
eastern Turkey.’
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov also took part in the talks, officials said. France,
Russia and the United States lead the Minsk Group under the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is seeking
to assist a diplomatic solution.
In related news, local TV this week reported that Armenian armed
forces again opened fire on Azerbaijani troops in two occupied
regions according to an ANS TV report quoting the Ministry of
Defense.
The ANS Karabakh bureau also reported that Armenian armed shelled
from positions in the occupied area of Gulchuluk Sovkhoz of Aghdam
region at the Azerbaijani army in Chiraqli village this Tuesday and
Wednesday nights. No casualties were reported.