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Iran Speaker Urges Negotiated Solution to Karabakh Dispute

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  • Iran Speaker Urges Negotiated Solution to Karabakh Dispute

    FARS News Agency, Iran
    July 2, 2011 Saturday

    Speaker Urges Negotiated Solution to Karabakh Dispute



    TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani renewed Iran's
    call for a negotiated solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between
    Armenia and Azerbaijan.

    Speaking to reporters in the Azeri capital city of Baku on Saturday,
    Larijani pointed to the failure of the recent trilateral negotiations
    between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh
    dispute, and said he and the Azeri officials have discussed the issue
    in their meetings.

    "We have always defended Azerbaijan's territorial integrity in all
    solutions to the dispute, and given the current circumstance in the
    region we recommend that the issue be solved through negotiations,"
    Larijani noted.

    He stressed that Iran is suspicious of the powerful countries'
    attitude and performance in the region since they are seeking their
    own interests, and added, "Therefore, we believe that it is more
    logical to pursue regional solutions to the Karabakh dispute."

    Russian President Dmitry Medvede's latest trilateral negotiations with
    Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev
    were held in the Russian city of Kazan on June 24.

    Despite facing strong international pressure, the Armenian and
    Azerbaijani leaders failed to agree on the basic principles of ending
    the Karabakh conflict put forward by Russia, the United States, and
    France.

    The Kazan meeting was the ninth Armenian-Azerbaijani summit hosted by
    Medvedev in the last three years.

    In November 2010, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced
    Tehran's readiness to help resolve the territorial dispute between
    Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

    "We believe that the Karabakh issue will be resolved through dialogue
    and the commitment of both sides to justice, and Tehran is ready to
    negotiate with them within this framework," Ahmadinejad said in a
    joint press conference with his Azeri counterpart at the time.

    Armenia and Azerbaijan remain officially at war over Karabakh and the
    dispute is a major source of tension in the South Caucasus region
    wedged between Iran, Russia and Turkey.

    No country - not even Armenia - officially recognizes Karabakh as an
    independent state.

    The rebel region has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since it
    broke free of Baku's control after a fierce war in the early 1990s
    that killed 30,000 people.

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