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Armenia, Azerbaijan Promise Cease-Fire

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  • Armenia, Azerbaijan Promise Cease-Fire

    ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN PROMISE CEASE-FIRE

    Associated Press
    Wednesday March 5 2008 By DESMOND BUTLER

    WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. official said Wednesday he has received
    assurances from Armenia and Azerbaijan that they have returned to
    a cease-fire along the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh after
    shooting broke out in recent days.

    After meetings in Baku with officials including Azerbaijani President
    Ilham Aliyev, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza is now
    heading to Armenia to try to encourage talks between the government
    and opposition figures who claim fraud in last month's election.

    Reached by telephone en route to Armenia's capital, Yerevan, Bryza
    said that he intends to deliver a stern message in Armenia about
    recent violence between police and demonstrators that has left eight
    people dead and more than 100 injured.

    "We simply deplore the violence," he said. "That simply can't be
    repeated."

    Bryza said he intends to press the government to lift a state of
    emergency it declared Saturday and to ask both sides to move their
    dispute from the streets to the negotiating table.

    Demonstrators have been rallying for presidential candidate Levon
    Ter-Petrosian, who has appealed to the country's constitutional
    court to overturn the results of the Feb. 19 election. Ter-Petrosian
    finished a distant second to Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian in the
    official results.

    Western observers issued an overall positive assessment of the
    election, but noted serious flaws, especially during the vote count.

    The opposition says Sarkisian stole the election by resorting to
    vote-buying, ballot stuffing and pressuring media to skew coverage
    in his favor. Several opposition members said they were beaten on
    election day to prevent them from monitoring the vote. The government
    denies any wrongdoing.

    After his meetings in Azerbaijan and a telephone call with Armenian
    Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian on Tuesday, Bryza says he is satisfied
    that tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh have subsided.

    "Based on everyone I have talked to it is clear that the shooting
    has stopped and the level of tension is decreasing," said Bryza,
    who has been the chief U.S. mediator to end the conflict in the region.

    Armenian and ethnic Armenian local forces drove the Azerbaijani army
    out of Nagorno-Karabakh in one of the bloodiest conflicts of the
    post-Soviet era.

    Some 30,000 people were killed and about 1 million were forced from
    their homes during six years of fighting that ended with the 1994
    cease-fire.

    Nagorno-Karabakh's separatist ethnic Armenian government is not
    recognized internationally, despite more than a decade of efforts by
    foreign mediators led by the United States, Russia and France to help
    reach a resolution.
    From: Baghdasarian
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