France hosts new round of Nagorno-Karabakh talks between Armenia, Azerbaijan

The Associated Press

Published: October 24, 2006

PARIS The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia met in Paris for talks Tuesday on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and discussions were “very frank and open-minded,” mediators said.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov are to meet again Nov. 14 in Brussels, said mediators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s so-called Minsk group, which deals with the conflict.

In Paris, “the two ministers held a constructive meeting in a very frank and open-minded atmosphere,” the OSCE said in a statement.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Azerbaijan that has been under the control of Armenian and ethnic-Armenian Karabakh forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year separatist war that killed about 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes.

The region’s final status has not been worked out, and years of talks under the auspices of OSCE mediators have brought little visible result.

Co-chairs of the Minsk group plan to assess the idea of a third meeting in 2006 between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the statement said.