The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are due to meet in Geneva on March 13-14.
Speaking at a press conference in Yerevan, Oskanian said the OSCE Minsk Group of international mediators wants the foreign ministers to prepare the ground for a meeting between Armenian President Robert Kocharian and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, in May.
"They want the presidents to meet as soon as possible after the parliamentary elections [in Armenia on May 12]," Oskanian said. "Because of this they want some progress at the ministerial level before the presidents meet."
The predominantly ethnic-Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan's borders. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over the enclave from 1988 until a 1994 cease-fire.
Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
Posted March 10th, 2007 by Dinka
