Sarkozy concerned about Karabakh delays

French President Nicolas Sarkozy meets Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, who is on a three-day visit to France, home to one of Europe’s largest Armenian communities. Sarkozy expresses concern about lagging diplomacy between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, his office says

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed concern Wednesday about lagging diplomacy between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, his office said.

Sarkozy laid out his concerns during a lunch meeting in Paris with Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, and urged both sides to make “the necessary efforts and compromises,” a French presidential spokesman said.

The French leader said he was concerned that a diplomatic process initiated about 18 months ago was losing steam, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing government policy.

Neither president spoke to reporters after their meeting.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave in Azerbaijan that has been occupied by Armenian forces since the end of a six-year conflict that left about 30,000 people dead and displaced 1 million before a truce was reached in 1994. Its unilateral independence is not recognized by the international community. The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been negotiating on the issue under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, but little progress has been made in the peace talks.

The international mediators in the Karabakh talks – Russia, France and the United States – urged all sides to step up work on a compromise deal.

Repeated efforts by international mediators such as Russia, France, the United States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to resolve the dispute have failed.

The lack of resolution has tied up development in the energy-rich South Caucasus. Gunfire breaks out sporadically along the border between the two ex-Soviet countries and in the regions near Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey, whose normalization talks with Armenia falters after a U.S. House panel vote last week that recommended labeling the World War I-era killings of Armenians as genocide, closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan in the conflict.

The House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee passed the resolution on a one-vote difference last Thursday despite last-minute objections from President Barack Obama’s administration.

The 23-22 vote sends the measure to the full House, forcing Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to decide whether to hold a floor vote on the measure.

The non-binding resolution calls on Obama to ensure that U.S. policy formally refers to World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as “genocide” and to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in April – something he avoided doing last year.

One day after the vote, Azerbaijan slammed the resolution, saying the move could damage U.S. interests in the Caspian country. Baku has backed Turkey’s rejection of the “genocide” label and accused the international community of remaining indifferent to the atrocities committed by Armenian forces during the Karabakh conflict. It also called on Turkey not to move ahead with normalization efforts with Armenia until the Karabakh dispute is resolved.

Any reopening of the crossing should run parallel with resolving the dispute over the mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said after he inked a historic diplomatic deal with his Armenian counterpart in October. And Azerbaijan says Turkey has given guarantees that the border won’t be re-opened until Armenia’s occupation of Karabakh is resolved.

Source: Hurriyet
URL: www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=sarkozy-concerned-about-karabakh-delays-2010-03-11

Posted by admin March 2010

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