Baku prepares its people for war in Karabakh: Armenian President says

YEREVAN, November 26. / ARKA /. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan accused today Azerbaijani leadership of preparing the Azerbaijani people for a war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Unfortunately, Azerbaijan ignores all the proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at building trust and continues unprecedented arms build-up preparing Azerbaijani people for a war," Sargsyan said on Monday in Beirut during a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman.

According to him, this was confirmed by pardoning and glorification of Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani officer who killed his Armenian peer, Gurgen Margarian, in Budapest in 2004.

"It is the egregious example of xenophobia and racism," he was quoted as saying by his press service.

"We rule out use of force to solve the conflict and are committed to a negotiated settlement with the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group," Sargsyan said. 

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in 1988 after the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave declared about secession from Azerbaijan as Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted in 1991, December 10, to secede from Azerbaijan and in the process proclaimed the enclave the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Full-scale fighting, initiated by Azerbaijan, erupted in the late winter of 1992. 

International mediation by several groups including Europe's OSCE’s failed to bring an end resolution that both sides could work with. In the spring of 1993, Armenian forces captured regions outside the enclave itself. By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of most of the enclave and also held and currently control seven regions beyond the administrative borders of Nagorno-Karabakh. Almost 1 million people on both sides have been displaced as a result of the conflict. A Russian- -brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994 and peace talks, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, have been held ever since by Armenia and Azerbaijan. -0-