Leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey hold separate talks on disputed region
AP Worldstream
May 16, 2005
Azeri President Ilham Aliev met with Armenian and Turkish leaders
at separate talks on the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, an
official said Monday.
Aliev first met with Armenian President Robert Kocharian, followed
by a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said
Council of Europe official Seyfi Tashan.
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 Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region inside
Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenians since
the early 1990s, following fighting 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.
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.