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* Mediators say progress made, difficulties identified
* Turkey wants progress before opening border with Armenia
* Azeri leader warned of force on eve of talks
* Nagorno-Karabakh heart of Caucasus energy transit region (Updates with French mediator after talks)
By Anna Holzer
MUNICH, Germany, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Mediators said “important progress” was made at talks on Sunday between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but that difficulties were also identified.
The mediators from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe provided few details after more than four hours of talks between Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Serzh Sarksyan in Munich.
Both presidents left without talking to reporters.
“Some important progress has been reached,” French mediator Bernard Fassier told reporters. “At the same time we have identified some difficulties.” He said he and his co-mediators from the United States and Russia would start work on preparing the next meeting, without specifying when it might take place.
Aliyev had raised the stakes before the talks, warning that the meeting — the sixth this year — would be “decisive” and that Azerbaijan’s military was ready to take back the mountain region by force.
Azeri ally Turkey is pressing for progress in the negotiations before it ratifies a deal with neighbouring Armenia to establish diplomatic relations and open the border it closed in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan.
Oil-producing Azerbaijan vehemently opposes the deal.
Backed by Christian Armenia, ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh threw off rule by Muslim Azerbaijan in fighting that erupted as the Soviet Union headed towards its 1991 collapse. Some 30,000 people died before a ceasefire in 1994.
The territory of 100,000 people wants recognition as an independent state, but 15 years of mediation have failed to produce a peace deal. Sporadic exchanges of fire continue to threaten war in a key oil and gas transit region to the West.
Reuters |
Akgün Medya