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Azeri, Armenian leaders vow to keep up talks on envlave stand-off

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  • Azeri, Armenian leaders vow to keep up talks on envlave stand-off

    Azeri, Armenian leaders vow to keep up talks on envlave stand-off

    Agence France Presse -- English
    September 16, 2004 Thursday 7:31 AM GMT

    ASTANA Sept 16 -- The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday
    promised to keep up dialogue on the bitter stand-off between their
    countries over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabach.

    Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Robert Kocharian of Armenia
    held more than three hours of late-night talks in the Kazakh capital
    mediated by Russia's President Vladimir Putin, but gave few clues as
    to what had passed between them.

    "We need time -- the president of Azerbaijan knows our position
    more concretely -- the process is continuing in a constructive way,"
    Kocharian said at a joint news conference with Aliyev.

    "Further development can resolve this question -- we discussed various
    questions on the path to a resolution," Aliyev said.

    Aliyev had earlier stressed the importance of Thursday's talks over
    the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which saw the two neighbours fight a
    war in the early 1990s and which remains unresolved.

    Aliyev has faced calls in his home country to take a bolder stand
    on the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and the thousands of Azeris who have
    fled the disputed area.

    International mediators had been urging face-to-face meetings between
    the two sides, which had faltered during the transition of power in
    Azerbaijan from Aliyev's father Heidar.

    In the early 1990s ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous
    territory wedged between Armenia and Azerbaijan, declared their
    independence from Azeri rule.

    A war followed in which the separatists, with help from Armenia, forced
    out Azeri troops and took de facto control of the enclave. The war left
    about 30,000 people dead and forced over a million to flee their homes.

    Though a ceasefire was signed in 1994, the war has never been
    declared over and Azerbaijan has repeatedly threatened to use force
    to re-establish its control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
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