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Armenia 'Barred' From CIS Defense Meeting In Baku

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  • Armenia 'Barred' From CIS Defense Meeting In Baku

    ARMENIA 'BARRED' FROM CIS DEFENSE MEETING IN BAKU
    By Emil Danielyan

    Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
    May 30 2006

    Armenia said on Tuesday that Azerbaijan has effectively prevented
    it from participating in this week's meeting in Baku of high-ranking
    defense officials from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

    The one-day session of the CIS Council of Defense Ministers is
    scheduled to open in the Azerbaijani capital on Wednesday. Official
    Yerevan said last week that Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian will
    not attend it, presumably because of the unresolved conflict over
    Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian Defense Ministry decided to send a
    lower-level delegation to the gathering instead.

    In a statement, the ministry said it has been informed by the
    Moscow-based Secretariat of the increasingly moribund CIS structure
    that the Azerbaijani authorities have refused to guarantee the
    security of the Armenian participants. It condemned the move, accusing
    Azerbaijan of failing to honor its international obligations.

    "We expect an official response from the CIS Council of Defense
    Ministers to the incident," added the statement.

    A spokesman for the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry confirmed that Baku
    is against Armenian participation in the meeting. "We came out against
    the participation at the meeting of occupier-countries - Armenia -
    which occupies 20 percent of territory long held by Azerbaijan,"
    the Associated Press news agency quoted Ilgar Verdiyev as saying.

    Many Azerbaijani government officials and civil society representatives
    consider the physical presence of any Armenian citizens in their
    country an affront to the memory of Azerbaijanis killed during the
    1991-1994 war for Karabakh. The Azerbaijani government was driven
    by such considerations when it refused to allow a group of Armenian
    army officers to take part in a NATO-led military exercise that had
    been due to take place on Azerbaijani soil in September 2004. NATO
    officials responded by canceling the multinational drills.

    In a separate development, President Jacques Chirac discussed the
    Karabakh conflict with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev in
    Paris on Tuesday. "There is no alternative to a peaceful, negotiated
    settlement," he told Aliev, according to the Associated Press.

    The meeting came three days after Chirac reportedly sent a letter to
    the Azerbaijani leader urging him not to miss a "unique opportunity"
    to settle the conflict. He apparently referred to Aliev's upcoming
    meeting in Bucharest with President Robert Kocharian. International
    mediators hope the two men will reach a framework peace agreement on
    Karabakh there.

    Aliev was in Paris to attend a session of the NATO Parliamentary
    Assembly. Addressing the Assembly on Tuesday, he called Karabakh
    "a black hole of Europe."
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