Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani Leaders To Discuss Karabakh
By Ria Novosti
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts in the southern Russian city of Sochi to discuss the Nagorny Karabakh settlement on Monday, the Kremlin reported.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will visit the Black Sea resort on Medvedev’s invitation. A trilateral meeting and bilateral meetings will be held.
Sargsyan and Aliyev voiced their intention to meet again to discuss the Karabakh settlement in early December 2011. Nine three-party meetings have been held since 2008, two of them in the Russian cities of Sochi and Kazan in 2011.
At the Kazan summit, the countries reached rapprochement on disputable issues of a draft settlement document that will underlie a peace agreement.
Medvedev said recently the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh, a breakaway region on Azerbaijani territory with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population, can be settled any day if the two conflicting Caucasus states agree to compromise.
The conflict between the two Caucasus states erupted in the late 1980s, when Nagorny Karabakh claimed independence from Azerbaijan. It is estimated to have left more than 30,000 people dead on both sides between 1988 and 1994. The region has since remained under Armenian control.
Russia has been mediating peace talks for nearly two decades.
