From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Fri Mar 23 2001 - 10:45:26 EST
ARMENIAN, AZERBAIJAN PRESIDENTS CALLS FOR GREATER INTERNATIONAL ROLE IN
KARABAKH MEDIATION
Addressing students at a Yerevan business school on 21 March, President Robert
Kocharian said international mediators should take the leading role in the search
for an acceptable
solution to the Karabakh conflict, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. He
admitted that while he and his Azerbaijani counterpart Heidar Aliev have
during their face-to-face meetings over the past two years come to
understand each other's concerns quite well, major points of
disagreement between them remain and the prospects of making further
progress in such talks are minimal. Kocharian said that the co-chairmen
of the OSCE Minsk Group engaged in mediating a solution of the conflict
"have a much better understanding...of the framework within which it is
possible to find a compromise solution." He characterized attitudes in
Yerevan, Stepanakert and Baku as "fairly favorable," and said that his
talks with Aliev and Minsk Group officials in Key West early next month
may be followed by a similar round of talks in Moscow. Kocharian also
stressed that Armenia has no intention of starting a new war with
Azerbaijan over Karabakh as "he who begins a war loses," according to
Interfax. Also on 21 March, President Aliev similarly
said at a meeting in Baku with U.S. Ambassador
Ross Wilson that international mediation efforts should be intensified
in order "to end everything peacefully," AP and Interfax reported. But
in an address the same day at a celebration to mark the Novruz spring
holiday, Aliev said that if efforts to reach a peaceful solution of the
Karabakh conflict fail, "the Azerbaijani people will display all their
strength and power and liberate occupied Azerbaijani lands by military
means." "We will never support a peace settlement that does not meet
Azerbaijan's national interests," Aliev added. LF
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