Kazan meeting may help resolve Karabakh conflict, OSCE chief says
MOSCOW – The dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh could move closer to a resolution if a meeting between the presidents of the two countries and regional power Russia is successful, the head of the OSCE said on Wednesday, RIA Novosti reported.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host Armenia's Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan in the Volga city of Kazan on Friday for talks on a settlement to the two-decade conflict over Nagorny Karabakh.
"We hope for peace and stability in this region and hope that the Kazan meeting will be successful and lead to resolving the conflict," Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, the secretary general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said at a news conference in Moscow.
Nagorny Karabakh, a breakaway region on Azerbaijani territory with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population, has been at the center of a bitter conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
It has remained under Armenian occupation since the late 1980s, when the region claimed independence from Azerbaijan to join Armenia. The conflict is estimated to have left more than 30,000 people dead on both sides between 1988 and 1994.
The OSCE Minsk Group, comprising Russia, France and the United States, mediates the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
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