Armenia/Azerbaijan: Karabakh Meeting Called 'Productive'



Prague, 24 February 1997 (RFE/RL) - Talks in Copenhagen today among the three co-chairs leading negotiations in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute -- the United States, Russia and France -- are characterized as productive.

And, an RFE/RL correspondent reports the talks will be extended by a day, and that it is believed that a date for a full meeting on Nagorno-Karabakh, to include all parties, might be set at tomorrow's meeting.

The three co-chairs are considering how to revitalize the stalled peace process.

A spokesman at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) told our correspondent earlier this week that no representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan or Nagorno-Karabakh have been invited to the talks.

An OSCE-sponsored ceasefire has been in effect in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh since May 1994. The enclave, inside Azerbaijan, is mostly populated by ethnic Armenians. Fighting erupted there in 1988, after the ethnic Armenians declared sovereignty. The ensuing years of conflict claimed over 20,000 lives.