Progress reported at Armenia-Azerbaijan talks
by Karel Janicek

The Associated Press    Translate This Article
8 May 2009

PRAGUE (AP) - The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan made 'serious progress' on Thursday during discussions aimed at resolving their long-standing dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a U.S. official said.

French and Russian mediators at the talks also expressed optimism, saying the two leaders had tentatively agreed to meet again early next month in St. Petersburg, Russia.

'On the basis of what we heard from both presidents, we expect to be in a position to confirm some progress during the next weeks and months,' said Bernard Fassier of France.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave in Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since a six-year conflict that killed about 30,000 people and displaced 1 million before a truce was reached in 1994.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan during its conflict with Armenia. Turkey backs Azerbaijan's claims to Nagorno-Karabakh, which has a large number of ethnic Armenian residents.

Presidents Serge Sarkisian of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan met on Thursday at the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Prague as Washington and other governments push for a solution to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The presidents 'were able in principle to reduce their differences on the basic principles and ... agree on the basic ideas that they came here to discuss,' said Matthew Bryza, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs and co-chairman of the so-called Minsk Group set up to resolve the problem.

'They do agree on a basic approach,' Bryza said. 'It's now up to us to work actively with the foreign ministers as requested by both presidents to work through the details and finalize these concepts that were discussed today. That's a positive sign. Today showed us that we are making serious progress.'

Bryza declined to give details about the talks, which also were attended by the foreign ministers of the two countries.

'There is progress, important progress today, significant progress in that these difficult points that have been debated and argued over by the presidents over the last few years are now conceptually agreed,' he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently encouraged Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve the dispute when she held separate meetings with them in Washington.

Both presidents were in Prague to attend a summit Thursday during which the European Union planned to offer aid and trade accords to six ex-Soviet republics to ease Moscow's hold over them.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



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