Azerbaijan's President Arrives In U.S.

Azerbaijani President IIham Aliyev (file photo) (AFP) April 26, 2006 -- Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has arrived in the United States on a trip whose agenda will be topped by Iran, energy supplies, and Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed part of Azerbaijani territory controlled since the early 1990s by its majority ethnic-Armenian population.

The U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch has called on U.S. President George W. Bush to press for reforms in Azerbaijan when he meets with Alikyev on April 28.


The Azeri president's office says the two leaders will discuss "problems related to democratic developments," as well as security in the Caucasus and a range of other topics.


(AP)


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Analysis: Putin Seeks To Draw Azerbaijan Back Into Russian Orbit

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

Click on the image to view an enlarged map of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone

In February 1988, the local assembly in Stepanakert, the local capital of the Azerbaijani region of NAGORNO-KARABAKH, passed a resolution calling for unification of the predominantly ethnic-Armenian region with Armenia. There were reports of violence against local Azeris, followed by attacks against Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait. In 1991-92, Azerbaijani forces launched an offensive against separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the Armenians counterattacked and by 1993-94 had seized almost all of the region, as well as vast areas around it. About 600,000 Azeris were displaced and as many as 25,000 people were killed before a Russian-brokered cease-fire was imposed in May 1994.

CHRONOLOGY: For an annotated timeline of the fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988-94 and the long search for a permanent settlement to the conflict, click here.

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