From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: "STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN!" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Azerbaijan Calls for NATO Bases in Caucasus BAKU, Mar 26, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Safar Abiyev has called for NATO to set up bases in the Caucasus, to help bring peace and stability -- and curb its rival Armenia's influence in the volatile region. "NATO military bases in the Caucasus would promote peace and pacify those nations that try to destabilize the situation," Abiyev said during a meeting with the deputy chief of U.S. forces in Europe, General Carlton Fulford. Armenia's activities in particular had drawn Baku's ire, with Azerbaijan's disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region under Yerevan's sway. "Armenia has occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, and now uncontrolled guerrilla bands formed there," Abiyev said. The defense ministry spokesman claimed Fulford, who had just completed his two-day visit to Armenia, said the idea of founding NATO bases in the Caucasus deserved consideration. The U.S. commander in turn reportedly urged Azerbaijan to boost its ties with Turkey, Baku's traditional ally in the region and a NATO member. Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev had indicated earlier that he would welcome a Turkish military base on Azerbaijan's soil. Abiyev himself had also sought to enlist Turkey's help to "show Armenia its proper place." Turkey has strong ethnic and historic ties with Azerbaijan, which had prompted Armenia to accuse it of taking a pro-Azerbaijani stance in the Karabakh issue. In addition, Turkey refuses to acknowledge the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which had further soured relations between Yerevan and Ankara. Azerbaijan and Armenia, former Soviet republics, fought a three-year war over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region largely populated by Armenians that proclaimed its independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 with Yerevan's backing. Some 30,000 people were killed and a million forced to flee their homes before a ceasefire was signed in 1994, but a final settlement has been inconclusive and tension in the south Caucasus still runs high. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev are to meet in Key West, Florida, in April in an attempt to resolve their states' bitter rivalry over the breakaway mountainous region. The U.S.-hosted Key West summit will be mediated by U.S., French and Russian negotiating teams, representing the three co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk group that deals with the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. So far, all of the Minsk group's attempts to settle the dispute have failed. Aliyev had said he had no hope that the OSCE could offer any new initiatives on the issue, and complained that it was what he described as Armenia's unyielding stance that had stalled the peace process so far. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse) _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
