Bergkarabach

(Quelle: RFE / RL) Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev today warned Armenia over delaying a negotiated solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Addressing a world congress of Azeris in Baku, Aliyev threatened to leave the negotiation table unless progress is reached in peace talks. ... Mediators mandated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help Armenia and Azerbaijan peacefully settle their dispute have expressed hope progress could be reached this year as neither country has an election planned any time soon.

(Quelle: RFE/RL) Azerbaijani and Armenian forces exchanged gunfire today in what correspondents say is the most serious outbreak of violence in the region in recent months. Azerbaijan said one of its soldiers was killed early on March 7 near the ceasefire line that separates Azerbaijani and Armenian forces. Armenian forces said one of their men had been killed in a separate clash last week. Both sides blamed the other for triggering the latest exchanges of fire.

(Quelle: RFE/RL) In an television interview on March 2, Armenian President Robert Kocharian hinted that he was prepared to recognize the disputed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. … President Kocharian's comments came one day after strong words from his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev. Speaking in the town of Banofshala, a small part of Nagorno-Karabakh still controlled by Azerbaijan, Aliyev said that talks with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh are at a 'dead end.' He also said that 'Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijani land' and 'We must free Nagorno-Karabakh, no matter what it takes.'

(Quelle: ISN) A new sense of determination and even fatalism has settled upon Azerbaijan since the collapse of peace talks in France earlier this month between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and his Armenian counterpart, Robert Kocharian. … Conflicting reports have indicated that one of the two outstanding issues was either the return of the Kelbajar region to Azerbaijani control or perhaps the conditions under which IDPs could return to Nagorno-Karabakh proper. But both sides agree that the most contentious issue was the “final status” of Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

(Quelle: Reliefweb) The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia ended Saturday their two-day talks in Rambouillet chateau south of Paris, without reaching any agreement on the Nagorny- Karabakh conflict. The mediators of the OSCE Minsk group - Russia, United States, France - announced that the negotiations had made no progress and that the issue was to be re-examined at the beginning of March in Washington.

(Quelle: Reliefweb) OSCE mediators brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh have completed the talks held in the two countries ahead of the presidents' meeting due in Paris on February 10-11. … The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs from Russia, France and the United States held meetings in the Armenian capital Yerevan that followed their talks with the top Azerbaijani leadership in Baku.

(Quelle: Reliefweb) One of the international negotiators to resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict has stressed the importance of mutual concessions and political will to break the deadlock in the long-standing dispute. 

(Quelle: RFE/RL) The chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) today said the organization would stand ready to help with the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh should the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan agree on it. Belgium's Foreign Minister, Karel De Gucht, made the comment after talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov, in Baku. The two discussed preparations for a 10 February summit between Armenia's Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev in Rambouillet, near Paris.

(Quelle: RFE/RL) The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are scheduled to meet in London tomorrow with the co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group to prepare the groundwork for a meeting early next month of the two countries' presidents. … Azerbaijan also continues to reject any status other than 'the highest degree of autonomy' within Azerbaijan for Karabakh. Armenia, by contrast, rules out any vertical subordination of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to the Azerbaijani central government.

(Quelle: Reliefweb) Armenia and Azerbaijan are to hold a summit over the disputed enclave of Nagorny-Karabakh next month, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan announced Tuesday. … 'We are convinced that next year we will have real windows of opportunity to achieve some significant progress in the direction of the peaceful settlement,' said Bernard Fassier, the French co-chairman of the Minsk Group of negotiators, which was established by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.