Tweet
La Prensa
Aug 10 2014
Putin meets with Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders over disputed region
Moscow, Aug 9 (EFE).- Russian President Vladimir Putin held meetings
Saturday in the Black Sea city of Sochi with his Armenian and
Azerbaijani counterparts in a bid to lower growing bilateral tensions
over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Putin said prior to the start of his meeting with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev that they would discuss long-standing and
sensitive issues related to solving the conflict, according to Russian
news agency Interfax.
Aliyev said the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute has gone on "too long"
and requires a solution.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, for his part, said before his
meeting with Putin that he would inform the Russian leader in detail
about the "situation in our region" and "the intentional exacerbation
by Azerbaijan of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border."
Without providing details on Saturday's meetings, Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov said in a press conference that the three leaders may
hold a trilateral summit Sunday, apparently in a continued pursuit of
a negotiated solution to the conflict.
"The purpose of the meeting is just to lower the tensions in the
Karabakh conflict area," a lawmaker and member of the Azerbaijan
parliament's Inter-Parliamentary Relations Committee, Rasim Musabekov,
told Efe.
"Putin wants to show the international community that he not only
should be associated with a lack of constructiveness for his role in
the Ukrainian conflict but can also be a peacemaker," he added.
But "it makes no sense to expect major progress in that meeting,"
Musabekov said.
Vafa Guluzade, an Azerbaijani political analyst, was even more
skeptical, saying that as an ally of Armenia, Russia is interested in
increasing tensions in Karabakh to apply pressure on Baku.
Hostilities between Azerbaijanis and Armenians resumed on July 31 with
the deaths of eight Azerbaijani soldiers, the largest single-day
casualty figure for that nation's side in the 20 years since a
cease-fire was established.
Amid the escalating conflict, the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe, which is responsible for supervising the 1994
cease-fire, called for an urgent meeting of the two nations'
presidents.
The conflict in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies
within Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians and
controlled by Yerevan, goes back to the collapse of the Soviet Union,
when the region's Armenian population sought unification with Armenia,
leading to a 1991-1994 war that left more than 25,000 people dead.
Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian troops occupy the entire enclave and
seven adjacent districts and have created a "security buffer" that
represents a third of Azerbaijani territory.
http://www.laprensasa.com/309_america-in-english/2660404_putin-meets-with-armenian-azerbaijani-leaders-over-disputed-region.html
Aug 10 2014
Putin meets with Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders over disputed region
Moscow, Aug 9 (EFE).- Russian President Vladimir Putin held meetings
Saturday in the Black Sea city of Sochi with his Armenian and
Azerbaijani counterparts in a bid to lower growing bilateral tensions
over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Putin said prior to the start of his meeting with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev that they would discuss long-standing and
sensitive issues related to solving the conflict, according to Russian
news agency Interfax.
Aliyev said the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute has gone on "too long"
and requires a solution.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, for his part, said before his
meeting with Putin that he would inform the Russian leader in detail
about the "situation in our region" and "the intentional exacerbation
by Azerbaijan of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border."
Without providing details on Saturday's meetings, Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov said in a press conference that the three leaders may
hold a trilateral summit Sunday, apparently in a continued pursuit of
a negotiated solution to the conflict.
"The purpose of the meeting is just to lower the tensions in the
Karabakh conflict area," a lawmaker and member of the Azerbaijan
parliament's Inter-Parliamentary Relations Committee, Rasim Musabekov,
told Efe.
"Putin wants to show the international community that he not only
should be associated with a lack of constructiveness for his role in
the Ukrainian conflict but can also be a peacemaker," he added.
But "it makes no sense to expect major progress in that meeting,"
Musabekov said.
Vafa Guluzade, an Azerbaijani political analyst, was even more
skeptical, saying that as an ally of Armenia, Russia is interested in
increasing tensions in Karabakh to apply pressure on Baku.
Hostilities between Azerbaijanis and Armenians resumed on July 31 with
the deaths of eight Azerbaijani soldiers, the largest single-day
casualty figure for that nation's side in the 20 years since a
cease-fire was established.
Amid the escalating conflict, the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe, which is responsible for supervising the 1994
cease-fire, called for an urgent meeting of the two nations'
presidents.
The conflict in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies
within Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians and
controlled by Yerevan, goes back to the collapse of the Soviet Union,
when the region's Armenian population sought unification with Armenia,
leading to a 1991-1994 war that left more than 25,000 people dead.
Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian troops occupy the entire enclave and
seven adjacent districts and have created a "security buffer" that
represents a third of Azerbaijani territory.
http://www.laprensasa.com/309_america-in-english/2660404_putin-meets-with-armenian-azerbaijani-leaders-over-disputed-region.html