Boutros-Ghali urges Armenia to pull out troops

Boutros-Ghali urges Armenia to pull out troops

BAKU (AFP): UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called
on Armenia yesterday to withdraw its troops from Azerbaijani
territory while hinting at possible United Nations involvement in
a peacekeeping plan to separate the warring republics.

At the start of a three-nation tour to the Transcaucasus,
Boutros-Ghali said in an open meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Gasan Gasanov in the capital Baku, he "will reiterate
the United Nations' position which is: the territorial integrity
of the member states and the immediate withdrawal of Armenian
troops from Azerbaijani territory."

On his first visit to Azerbaijan since it gained independence
three years ago, Boutros-Ghali was given a tough introduction to
the results of the republic's six-year war with neighboring
Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, when he
visited the Allee Shakhidov war cemetery, located on a hill above
Baku overlooking the Caspian sea.

"I've lost my son, I don't want any more fighting. I want
peace," an Azeri woman dressed in black, standing next to her
son's gravestone, tearfully told the UN secretary general.

A cease-fire brokered by Russia has held for six months in
Karabakh, an enclave situated inside Azerbaijan but populated by
an ethnic Armenian majority, which has raised hopes of a
settlement to the conflict.

A Russian proposal to send its own peacekeeping troops to
Karabakh has been consistently ruled out by Azerbaijan which
fears a Russian force would merely cement the republic's
territorial losses.

Azerbaijan's pressure on the Conference for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), to deploy an "international"
peacekeeping force to separate the warring sides in Karabakh,
appears to have paid off after the CSCE proposed a 1,600-2,000
strong peacekeeping force earlier this month -- the first in the
CSCE's short history.

Boutros-Ghali said the CSCE's lack of peacekeeping experience
should "not be an obstacle to a presence of the CSCE to solve the
situation (in Karabakh)."

The secretary general affirmed the United Nations would assist
the CSCE-sponsored peace plan and hinted at a possible UN role in
the proposed peacekeeping operation, saying the United Nations
would "participate in a real presence on the ground."

UN representative to Azerbaijan Mahmoud El-Said said the
United Nations would provide "technical help" for any CSCE
peacekeeping effort but it was not yet clear what form this would
take.

But standing in the way of a peace agreement is Armenia's
continued refusal to evacuate the strategically vital Lachin
"corridor" and the town of Shusha.

Lachin forms a vital land link between Armenia and the
disputed territory while Shusha, situated above the Karabakh
capital of Stepanakert, was used to rain shells and rockets on
the latter's Armenian inhabitants until it was captured by
Armenian forces in 1992.

Foreign Minister Gasanov urged Boutros-Ghali to raise the
issue of Lachin and Shusha with the Armenian government when he
travels to Yerevan next week.

An Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman said, "...Without
Lachin or Shusha, it (a peace agreement) will not be possible."