Yerevan Insists On Safeguards Against Karabakh Fighting

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan (Photo: Photolur)

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)””The Nagorno-Karabakh peace process will remain essentially deadlocked until Azerbaijan agrees to confidence-building measures aimed at minimizing ceasefire violations in the conflict zone, a senior Armenian official said on Wednesday.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents reportedly agreed on such measures when they met in Vienna in May shortly after the worst fighting around Karabakh since 1994. Those included international investigations of armed incidents, an idea that has long been advanced by the U.S., Russian and French mediators.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said last week that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev objected to such investigations at a follow-up meeting with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian held in Saint Petersburg in June.

Still, Aliyev and Sarkisian again pledged to bolster the ceasefire regime in a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin that was issued after that meeting. They also hinted at progress towards a peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

Armenian officials say there has been no further progress in the peace process since the Saint Petersburg summit because of Baku’s refusal to comply with the confidence-building agreements.

“There is still no progress in the negotiation process,”