06 10 05 - OSCE brokers new round of Nagorno-Karabakh talks between Armenia, Azerbaijan

The Associated Press Published: October 3, 2006-( From A.M.USA)<BR>

YEREVAN, Armenia Envoys from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Tuesday brokered a new round of talks between foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict following a tense impasse. Yuri Merzlyakov, a Russian diplomat who co-chairs the so-called Minsk group of the OSCE dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said the two nations' foreign ministers were to meet Friday in Moscow. He said a time and venue for a meeting of presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan remain to be negotiated. The foreign ministers' meeting would restart bilateral talks which have been interrupted recently due to the lack of progress. "We would like to rejuvenate direct contacts between the sides, and I think we have achieved this goal," said U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J. Bryza, another co-chair. OSCE envoys held talks in Armenia Tuesday a day after visiting Azerbaijan. Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Azerbaijan that has been under the control of Armenian and ethnic-Armenian Karabakh forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year separatist war that killed about 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes. The region's final status has not been worked out, and years of talks under the auspices of OSCE mediators have brought little visible result. Talks in France in February between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and Armenian President Robert Kocharian about the enclave broke down, and the two leaders again failed to agree on principles for settling the conflict when they met again in Romania in June. "We aren't saying that we are on the verge of a grand breakthrough or that the difficult problems have got any easier, but we do sense the willingness of the sides to think in a deeper way and look for a way to move ahead," Bryza said. He said that lack of trust between the parties continued to hinder the talks and said that "an effort to rebuild that confidence" was particularly important. Earlier this year, OSCE mediators proposed a set of principles for settling the conflict which included withdrawing Armenian troops from the Azerbaijani territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh but suggested that a corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh would remain under Armenian control. The principles also included deploying international peacekeepers, resettling displaced people and a referendum — its timing and format to be worked out later — on the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Merzlyakov said Azerbaijan and Armenia were advised to proceed from the same set of principles. "It's wrong to say that the things already done are no longer on the table," he said. YEREVAN, Armenia Envoys from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Tuesday brokered a new round of talks between foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict following a tense impasse. Yuri Merzlyakov, a Russian diplomat who co-chairs the so-called Minsk group of the OSCE dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said the two nations' foreign ministers were to meet Friday in Moscow. He said a time and venue for a meeting of presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan remain to be negotiated. The foreign ministers' meeting would restart bilateral talks which have been interrupted recently due to the lack of progress. "We would like to rejuvenate direct contacts between the sides, and I think we have achieved this goal," said U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J. Bryza, another co-chair. OSCE envoys held talks in Armenia Tuesday a day after visiting Azerbaijan. Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Azerbaijan that has been under the control of Armenian and ethnic-Armenian Karabakh forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year separatist war that killed about 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes. The region's final status has not been worked out, and years of talks under the auspices of OSCE mediators have brought little visible result. Talks in France in February between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and Armenian President Robert Kocharian about the enclave broke down, and the two leaders again failed to agree on principles for settling the conflict when they met again in Romania in June. "We aren't saying that we are on the verge of a grand breakthrough or that the difficult problems have got any easier, but we do sense the willingness of the sides to think in a deeper way and look for a way to move ahead," Bryza said. He said that lack of trust between the parties continued to hinder the talks and said that "an effort to rebuild that confidence" was particularly important. Earlier this year, OSCE mediators proposed a set of principles for settling the conflict which included withdrawing Armenian troops from the Azerbaijani territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh but suggested that a corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh would remain under Armenian control. The principles also included deploying international peacekeepers, resettling displaced people and a referendum — its timing and format to be worked out later — on the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Merzlyakov said Azerbaijan and Armenia were advised to proceed from the same set of principles. "It's wrong to say that the things already done are no longer on the table," he said.

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