POLITICS
OSCE CHAIRMAN UPBEAT ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT
Azerbaijan and Armenia have made progress in resolving a long-standing dispute over a Caucasus mountain enclave and the OSCE hopes for a regional declaration on the issue at its annual meetings later this week, its chairman said on Tuesday.
"Things are looking quite good on Nagorno-Karabakh," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who is leading the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe under the Finnish chairmanship, told Reuters in an interview.
"I think that we are moving away from a frozen conflict towards a permanent solution, but of course we are not there yet, and it is very important that the Minsk Group works on this," Stubb said.
The Minsk Group -- co-chaired by Russia, the United States and France -- was established by the OSCE in 1992 to bring about a peaceful resolution in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where a Russian-brokered ceasefire has held since 1994.
Nagorno-Karabakh`s mostly ethnic Armenian population broke away from Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some 35,000 people were killed in fighting and more than a million were forced to flee their homes.
The matter remains a serious source of tension in the volatile Caucasus region. Stubb said talks among the 50 foreign ministers in Helsinki on Dec. 4-5 for the annual meeting of Europe`s main security and human rights body will be dominated by Caucasus disputes, including Nagorno-Karabakh, along with the broader question of European security.