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Karabakh: Int'l experts weigh settlement chances

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  • Karabakh: Int'l experts weigh settlement chances

    RIA Novosti, Russia
    July 25 2004

    KARABAKH: INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS WEIGH SETTLEMENT CHANCES


    YEREVAN, July 25 (RIA Novosti) - Stepanakert, capital of the
    unrecognized Armenian-populated Karabakh Republic in Azerbaijan,
    hosted an international expert team today, who were discussing
    prospects for peaceful Armenian-Azeri conflict settlement, announced
    the Central Information Board under the Karabakh president.

    The visitors held a conference with the republican top to blueprint
    measures the conflicting parties should take to pace up settlement.
    They called to enhance international involvement in the cause. The
    experts also reported their impressions of contacts with Karabakh
    authorities and NGO spokesmen.

    Leading the delegation is Bruce Jackson, NATO committee head in the
    U.S. Senate, in charge of Project Transitional Democracies. The other
    delegates are Daniel Twining, director for foreign politics, German
    branch of the U.S.-based Marshall Foundation; Ronald Asmus, head
    expert of the Marshall Foundation trans-Atlantic relations board;
    Randy Scheuneman, Orion strategic center president; Istvan Gyarmati,
    Hungary, board chair of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Integration and
    Democracy; and Robert Cotrell, European branch editor of the UK-based
    journal, The Economist.

    A truce was made on Karabakh more than ten years ago. Painstaking
    international mediation by the OSCE Minsk group has not brought
    settlement a step closer since that day. Occasional skirmishes are
    lately reported from the conflict zone day in, day out, the
    belligerents shifting the blame on each other.

    Azeri authorities are willing to grant extensive autonomy to what
    they regard as a rebellious province, but are set on Azerbaijan
    retaining it for the sake of territorial integrity. Baku also insists
    on regaining long-established Azeri areas bordering on Karabakh and
    seized in the warfare, and on Azeri refugees returning home. The
    latter demand is a worthy reason for negotiations, agree Armenian and
    Karabakh leaders. They, however, would not listen about Karabakh ever
    getting back under the Azeri wing.
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