The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Moscow this weekend to discuss the Nagorny Karabakh conflict in talks mediated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin said Wednesday.
"On November 2, 2008, in Moscow... a meeting will take place between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian with the participation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the regulation of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict," the Kremlin said in a statement.
Armenia and Azerbaijan confirmed that the meeting would take place, but presidential officials in both countries declined to comment further. Medvedev visited Armenia last week in a fresh push to end the long-simmering conflict over Nagorny Karabakh, an enclave of Azerbaijan with a largely ethnic Armenian population that broke free of Baku's control in the early 1990s.
Sarkisian said at the meeting that he was ready for talks with Baku on the basis of principles worked out at negotiations in Madrid last year, meaning that the people of Nagorny Karabakh gain the right to self-determination.
The enclave has been the subject of heightened international diplomacy in recent weeks, with US and Turkish officials visiting Armenia to push for a negotiated solution. Analysts say Moscow is keen to maintain influence in Armenia, its main ally in the Caucasus, after Russia's brief war with US-allied Georgia in August raised tensions throughout the region.
The August war, which began when Georgia attacked its own breakaway enclave of South Ossetia, raised fears of similar violence in Nagorny Karabakh.
Nearly 30,000 were killed in the 1990s war over the enclave and soldiers on both sides continue to exchange sporadic fire, claiming lives.
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