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    March 22, 2012

Minsk Group Calls for End to Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

   VOA News

   Foreign ministers from the United States, Russia and France are urging
   Azerbaijan and Armenia to take steps to end the conflict over the
   disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
   Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
   Clinton and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe made the call in a
   statement issued Thursday to mark the 20th anniversary of the formal
   request to convene a conference on the issue.
   The three countries comprise the so-called Minsk Group, an
   international panel trying to negotiate an end to the conflict.
   Thursday's statement calls on both sides to demonstrate the "political
   will" needed to achieve a lasting and peaceful settlement.
   It says people in the region have suffered most from the consequences
   of war, adding that any delay in reaching a settlement will only
   prolong their hardships.
   Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region deep inside
   Azerbaijan, declared independence from the Baku government in 1988,
   triggering a six-year war that claimed 35,000 lives and left more than
   one million people homeless.
   Major fighting ended after a 1994 cease-fire, but there are frequent
   reports of firefights along the border.
   Repeated international efforts to broker a peace deal have failed, and
   border tensions between Armenian-backed forces and Azerbaijani troops
   remain high.

   Some information for this report provided by AFP.

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