BAKU, YEREVAN WANT TO MOVE AHEAD ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH – U.S. DIPLOMAT
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
March 16, 2006 Thursday
Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev expressed their willingness to continue contributing to
efforts to reach a peace agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh during recent
negotiations in France, U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said at a news conference
in Yerevan on Thursday.
Fried disagreed that the talks between Kocharian and Aliyev in
Rambouillet on February 10-11 drove the negotiating process into a
dead end.
Attempts are currently being made to see in which direction the
settlement process could now move, he said.
During his visit to the region, Fried said he addressed ways of
settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, energy security and prospects
for the region’s development.
The U.S. believes it would be useful to look into the future in light
of the current problems in the South Caucasus to see how the region
is to develop on the whole and how democracy and economic reforms
will be proceed there.
The U.S. does not rule out that nuclear energy could be used to
diversify energy supplies in the region, he said.
The diplomat said he is aware of Armenia’s interest in building a new
safe and up-to-date nuclear power plant and that he would inform his
leadership in Washington about this.