Serbianna.com, Michigan
June 30 2006
G-8 FMs call for prompt resolution of Balkans
Thursday, June 29, 2006 10:26 AM
MOSCOW-Foreign ministers from the Group of Eight major industrialized
nations on Thursday called for a prompt resolution to regional
conflicts that continue to plague some ex-Soviet territories and
Balkan countries.
In a joint statement, diplomats called for the ex-Soviet South
Caucasus states of Armenia and Azerbaijan to reach an agreement this
year on the long and bitterly disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"We call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to show political will with the
aim to reach an agreement this year and prepare their peoples for
peace and not for war," the document said.
Nagorno-Karabakh is inside Azerbaijan, but is populated mostly by
ethnic Armenians, who have run it and seven contiguous districts
since an uneasy 1994 cease-fire ended six years of full-scale war.
Sporadic border clashes regularly break out. The unresolved conflict
has held up development in the strategic region.
The ministers also urged a solution for the Serbian province, Kosovo.
The ethnic Albanian majority want to become independent, but the Serb
minority wants it to remain part of Serbia.
"We welcomed the launch of direct Belgrade-Pristina talks and in this
regard we urge the parties, including the Kosovo Serbs, to negotiate
in good faith and make every effort to reach a negotiated agreement,"
the ministers said.
"We underline that Kosovo must remain multiethnic. The Kosovo
leadership should