MEDVEDEV RAISES HOPES ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH
By Denis Dyomkin
Independent.co.uk
Monday, 3 November 2008
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to intensify talks to
end a 20-year conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and his Azeri counterpart, Ilham
Aliyev also agreed after talks outside Moscow with Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev to develop confidence building measures as they search
for a way to resolve the conflict.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s mostly ethnic Armenian population broke away
from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union
collapsed. It now runs its own affairs, with support from Armenia.
"The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to continue work,
including during further contacts on a high level, on agreeing a
political resolution of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh," according to
a copy of the declaration they signed, which was read out by Medvedev.
Both presidents "ordered their foreign ministers to intensify further
steps in the negotiating process in coordination with the Minsk group"
of international mediators.
Sarksyan and Aliyev, who hastily shook hands before the talks at
the Meiendorf Castle official residence outside Moscow, signed the
document along with Medvedev, who is seeking to underline Russia’s
clout in the Caucasus region.
The war between Russia and Georgia in August appears to have lent
new impetus to diplomatic efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, with Russia trying to show it can act as a broker for
"frozen conflicts" in the former Soviet Union.