MP: IRAN READY TO MEDIATE IN KARABAKH DISPUTE
Trend, Azerbaijan
June 21 2013
Iranian Legislator and Head of the Parliament’s Research Center Kazzem
Jalali voiced Tehran’s readiness to help resolve the territorial
dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh
region, IRNA reported.
“We believe that settling dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over
the of Nagorno-Karabakh region has political solution and this problem
should be resolved by the regional countries and the neighbors close
to the region,” Jalali said.
Being located in the vicinity of Armenia and Azerbaijan republics’
war zones, Iran is naturally more sensitive about this issue than
the other regional countries.
Armenia and Azerbaijan thus remain officially at war over Karabakh
and the dispute is a major source of tension in the South Caucasus
region wedged between Iran, Russia and Turkey.
No country – not even Armenia – officially recognizes Karabakh as an
independent state.
The mountainous rebel region has been controlled by ethnic Armenians
since it broke free of Baku’s control after a fierce war in the early
1990s that killed 30,000 people.