Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Caucasus arch-rivals join Council of Europe
by Reuters English News Service, 01/25/2001
Posted: Monday, January 29, 2001 05:06 pm CST

STRASBOURG, France, Jan 25 (Reuters) - The Council of Europe welcomed Armenia and Azerbaijan as new member states on Thursday, saying it hoped the move would help end the Caucasus arch-rivals' 13-year conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

But Azeri President Haydar Aliyev showed little sign of softening his country's stand, delivering a tough speech that pinned blame for the conflict on Armenia and called for the outside world to act.

For his part, Armenian President Robert Kocharyan said the dispute should be settled within a larger, regional framework.

"Azerbaijan is today the victim of large scale armed aggression by its Armenian neighbour," Aliyev said. "There is no similar situation in the world, but the international community watches this fearful tragedy in silence."

Kocharyan told the Council: "Armenia's position is determined by the need for legal equality between the two sides involved in the conflict and also by the need to take into account the reality of Nagorno-Karabakh."

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict broke out in 1988 when the majority ethnic Armenians in that enclave tried to secede from Azerbaijan. Some 35,000 people died in six years of fighting halted by a 1994 ceasefire.

"We hope that their simultaneous integration into the European family will help Armenia and Azerbaijan adopt a new approach to seeking a rapid solution to the conflict," the Council's secretary-general, Walter Schwimmer, said.

The two former Soviet republics' membership in the human rights and democracy body brought the number of member countries in the Council of Europe to 43.

Armenia and Azerbaijan were granted special guest status in the council's parliamentary assembly in 1996 and applied for membership the same year.

The Council of Europe said last year that it believed both countries were willing to comply with its standards on democracy and human rights, adding that it would monitor their democratic progress on a regular basis.

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