Good basis for solving Armenia conflict: Aliyev

Good basis for solving Armenia conflict: Aliyev

There was “a good basis” for resolving a long-running conflict with Armenia, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday said after talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev near Moscow.
“It seems to us that there is now a good basis for a resolution of the conflict, which would fit with the interests of all states and would be based on the principles of international law,” Aliyev said.

“If the conflict is resolved in the near future, I am sure that there will be new perspectives for regional cooperation,” Aliyev said.

Aliyev also expressed his concern over the situation in the region following Russia’s war in Georgia, saying that conflict “should be resolved in a peaceful way, through dialogue, by finding common points and based on mutual respect.”

Aliyev visited Medvedev at his residence near Moscow for talks on last month’s conflict in Georgia and on Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a region of Azerbaijan which has been under the occupation of Armenia since the war broke out between the two states in 1988-1994.

In 1988 when the disputed region’s Armenian-dominated governing council voted to secede from Azerbijan, it set of a series of bloody clashes both between and within the two neighboring countries. Some 10 percent of the Azeri population was displaced.

A ceasefire was signed between the two former Soviet republics in 1994 but the dispute remains unresolved after more than a decade of negotiations

HURRIYET

18.09.2008