‘Iran ready to mediate in Karabakh issue’

The Iranian Ambassador to Baku Mohsen Pakaein has repeated Tehranâ„¢s readiness to mediate between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

Pakaein said that Iran could act as a mediator in resolving the dispute provided that Armenia and Azerbaijani give their consent.

Å“If the two countries are willing, Iran, as an influential country in the region, the chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the also an active member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), will enter negotiations with the countries in question and will present its views on the resolution of the dispute,” he said.

He said the security of the region could be at stake as there will always be the risk of a war unless the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute is settled.

Given the fact that Iran has land borders with both Azerbaijan and Armenia, any violation of the regionâ„¢s stability in the border areas would have a negative impact on Iran as well, the envoy added.

Both Azerbaijan and Armenia claim the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is largely populated by Armenians but located in Azerbaijan.

Ethnic Armenian forces took control over the enclave which accounts for 16 percent of Azerbaijan in the early 1990s during a six-year war with the country that took place from February 1988 to May 1994.

The conflict left an estimated 30,000 people dead and one million displaced before the two sides agreed to a cease-fire in 1994. However, a peace accord has never been signed and the dispute still remains unsettled.

Iran has on several occasions offered to intervene in the dispute.

“We believe that the Karabakh issue will be resolved through dialogue and the commitment of both sides to justice, and Tehran is ready to negotiate with them within this framework,” Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a joint press conference with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev in November, 2010.

AR/HGH