Astrakhan Declaration is a positive development in Karabakh peace process: Philip Crowley

The United States welcomes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s brokerage of a meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents that resulted in the signing of a declaration that will see an exchange of prisoners of war and the return of bodies, US
Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley said at a daily briefing on Thursday.

“We welcome the October 27 joint statement, yesterday’s statement by Presidents Medvedev, [Serzh] Sargsyan and [Ilham] Aliyev in which Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of bodies with the assistance of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and the International Committee of the Red Cross,” said he.

Further Mr Crowley said that he appreciates Medvedev’s “personal efforts” to reach that agreement aimed to building confidence between the two former Soviet Union countries and strengthen the ceasefire.

“We appreciate President Medvedev’s personal efforts to reach this agreement, which aims to build confidence between the parties and to strengthen the 1994 ceasefire. This joint statement represents a positive development in the ongoing OSCE Minsk Group process to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh and we look forward to seeing its implementation as soon as possible,” said Philip Crowley.

The conflict between the two former Soviet countries over Nagorno Karabakh started when Karabakhi Armenians voiced their intention to live independently from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. It was followed by pogroms against Armenians in Sumgait, Baku and Nagorno Karabakh that turned into a bloody war, leaving around 30,000 killed and more than a million displaced.

In a next round of peace talks on October 27 held in the Russian southern city of Astrakhan Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed the provisions of the declaration adopted on November 2, 2008 in Meiendorf, Russia, and they underscored that additional steps are necessary to take to strengthen the ceasefire regime and mutual trust in the military sphere to solve the conflict peacefully.

They also signed a declaration to exchange prisoners of war and return the corpses of soldiers and civilians killed on the line of contact.

The peace talks over Nagorno Karabakh are spearheaded by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair states – US, Russia and France.