Azeri, Armenian leaders agree to bilateral meeting to discuss Karabakh problem

Nagorno Karabakh is a mountainous region in Azerbaijan that has been under the control of Armenian and ethnic-Armenian Karabakh forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year separatist war that killed about 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes.

The region's final status remains unresolved, and years of talks under the auspices of international mediators have brought few visible results.

President Ilham Aliyev's press service said Thursday he has agreed to meet with his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian on the sidelines of a Tuesday summit of ex-Soviet republics in Minsk, Belarus.

Earlier this week, Russian officials involved in mediating the conflict said Kocharian had also agreed to meet.

Both leaders last held bilateral talks in June and the meeting failed to produced a breakthrough. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/