Russia to Host Armenia and Azerbaijan Leaders for Karabakh Talks
By VOA News
29 October 2008

Russian officials say the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Moscow Sunday for talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Officials said Wednesday that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev will mediate the talks on the largely Armenian populated enclave of Azerbaijan.

Mr. Medvedev announced plans to invite the two leaders to negotiate a peace deal during a visit to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, last week.

He said the recent Russian military conflict with Georgia has shown the need to settle territorial disputes through negotiation.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says the United States is pleased by Russia’s initiative and hopes it succeeds.

The United States has urged both Azerbaijan and Armenia to step up efforts to end the conflict.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-10-29-voa71.cfm

RUSSIA TAKES INITIATIVE IN INTERNATIONAL PUSH FOR KARABAKH PEACE

By Emil Danielyan

Monday, October 27, 2008

Russia has taken the center stage in international efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict, which could yield a breakthrough before the end of this year. President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to host a potentially decisive meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts next month. Moscow may thus be trying to sideline the OSCE’s so-called Minsk Group on Karabakh, which it has long co-chaired with the United States and France.

When he paid an official visit to Yerevan on October 21, Medvedev publicly urged Presidents Serzh Sarkisian of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to meet in his presence in Russia. The Karabakh dispute was high on the agenda. “I hope that the three presidents will meet in the very near future to continue discussions on this theme,” he told a joint news conference with Sarkisian. “I hope that the meeting will take place in Russia” (Regnum, October 21). He noted that the Karabakh peace process now seemed to be “in an advanced stage.”

Medvedev discussed what the Kremlin described as preparations for the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in a phone call with Aliyev the next day (Interfax, October 22). Konstantin Zatulin, a Kremlin-linked Russian pundit, told Armenian journalists afterward that the crucial summit would likely take place in early November; but neither conflicting party has yet confirmed the meeting, let alone announced any dates for it. Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Novruz Mammadov, has said only that it was “possible” (Trend news agency, October 22). Armenian officials have not commented on the matter at all.

Medvedev announced his initiative following unusually optimistic statements on Karabakh peace prospects that were made by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. In an October 7 interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Lavrov spoke of a “very real chance” to end the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in the coming weeks. “There remain two or three unresolved issues that need to be agreed upon at the next meetings of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said. He added that the future of the so-called Lachin corridor, which is the shortest overland link between Armenia and Karabakh, is now the main stumbling block in the peace talks. Three days later, Lavrov held a trilateral meeting with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts on the sidelines of a CIS summit in Bishkek.

http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373481