BAKU (CÝHAN) - Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev will meet with his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocaryan to discuss the looming Nagorno Karabað issue. Russian President Vladimir Putin will also attend the meeting in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana.
Azerbaijan President Ýlham Aliyev is to meet Armenian President Robert Koçaryan in September in Astana where the summit of the Commonwealth Independent States (CIS) will take place, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will also attend the meetings as a third party. Apart from the Nagarno Karabag issue, the three leaders will take up the issue of the restoration of peace in the region.
After the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, Armenia took control of the Nagarno Karabagh region, equal to 20 percent of all Azeri territory, after a three-year war. One million Azeribaijanis, who were forced to leave Karabagh by the Armenians, currently live in very bad conditions in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been at war in Nagorno Karabag which has been under Armenian military occupation since the 1990's following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been carrying out talks between the two countries in an attempt to mediate in the dispute.