RFE/RL -- Armenia has officially responded to international mediators’ recently modified plan to end the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, an aide to President Serzh Sarkisian said on Thursday.

The American, French and Russian co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group announced in January that they have developed an “updated version” of the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement. The have still not disclosed changes made in a document that was formally submitted the conflicting parties in Madrid late 2007.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents are understood to have discussed the updated Madrid document at their January 25 talks in Russia hosted by President Dmitry Medvedev. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev agreed to “prepare their own concrete ideas and formulations” on their remaining disagreements.

RFE/RL -- Azerbaijan stepped up its threats to win back Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian-controlled territories surrounding it by force on Thursday, with Defense Minister Safar Abiyev speaking of a growing likelihood of “a great war” with Armenia.

“For 15 years diplomacy has not achieved any concrete results and Azerbaijan cannot wait another 15 years,” Abiyev said, according to an Azerbaijani Defense Ministry statement reported by local and international media.

“Now it's the military's turn and the threat is growing every day," Abiyev was quoted as telling the French ambassador to Baku, Gabriel Keller. “If Armenia does not end its occupation of Azerbaijan's territory, the beginning of a great war in the South Caucasus is inevitable.”

Iran has its own considerations and views about a peacekeeping force that could be deployed in the Karabakh conflict zone, according to the Islamic Republic’s chief diplomat in Armenia.

Ambassador Seyed Ali Saghaeyan told a press conference in Yerevan on Friday that “Iran shares a common border with Karabakh and therefore we surely have our own considerations and views about the composition of a peacekeeping force that might be deployed in the conflict zone.”

The ambassador did not specify, however, the country whose participation in such a peacekeeping operation would be unacceptable for Iran. Nor did the Iranian ambassador specify what he meant by saying that Iran and Karabakh “share a common border.” Saghaeyan was speaking in Persian through his official interpreter.

Military authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have denied violating a ceasefire following a casualties report issued by Azerbaijan on Thursday. A spokesman said Stepanakert remains committed to the agreed regime along the line of contact with Azerbaijani armed forces.

RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service quoted the country’s Defense Ministry as confirming that three Azerbaijani soldiers were killed and another soldier was wounded “after exchanging fire with Armenian armed forces near the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.” The Azerbaijani ministry did not specify where the fighting took place. Its spokesman said the Armenian side also suffered casualties.

Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday, a Nagorno-Karabakh military spokesman advised “searching for the causes of the Azerbaijani soldiers’ deaths in the [low] morale of the Azerbaijani armed forces.” He also flatly denied casualties on the Armenian side.

Civilitas Foundation -- Azerbaijan’s minister of foreign affairs has found generally acceptable the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ new version of the principles for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, proposed last December in Greece. This is the first occasion since 1997 that Baku has found the mediators’ proposal acceptable.

Now, it is Armenia’s turn and it will be difficult for Armenia to say "Yes" to the version that took shape first in Krakow in July 2009, then in Athens at the end of 2009 and then in Sochi on January 25, 2010, because in contrast to the 2007 Madrid proposals, not only is the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to self-determination very vague, but in terms of removing the consequences of the conflict, Azerbaijan is at an advantage.

Since 1997, Azerbaijan has either rejected or withheld consent to all settlement proposals; it also rejected the Madrid document presented in 2007. And now, over the course of a mere two years, the mediators have presented proposals which are acceptable to Azerbaijan and unacceptable for Armenia.

RFE/RL -- Armenia and Azerbaijan are narrowing their differences over a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict sought by international mediators, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said over the weekend.

“We are trying to help Armenians and Azerbaijanis to reach a common approach,” the DPA news agency quoted him as saying at the Munich Security Conference. “It's obviously a very difficult issue, but things are moving.”

“The understanding is growing and the number of issues that must be tackled by the top leaders is reducing and we are trying to help,” Lavrov said.

Russia, which co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group with the United States and France, has stepped up its involvement in the Karabakh negotiating process of late, with President Dmitry Medvedev hosting this year’s first meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts near the Russian city of Sochi late last month.

RFE/RL -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has harshly criticized the United States and other world powers spearheading the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, saying that they have lacked commitment to broker a peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

“There has been serious neglect by the Minsk trio,” Erdogan charged in a Sunday evening interview with Turkish state television, referring to the U.S., Russia and France -- the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on Karabakh.

“If Russia, the US and France had worked hard within the past 20 years, none of these problems would have emerged; neither the trouble between us and Armenia, nor a trouble between Armenia and Azerbaijan would remain,” he said, according to “Today’s Zaman” daily. “The performance of Russia, America and France has been below expectations,” he added.

Itar-Tass -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet with his counterparts, Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, in Sochi on Monday to discuss the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Kremlin press service reported.

Upon the results of the first tripartite meeting in Barvikha “the presidents signed the Declaration of the Azerbaijani Republic, the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation, which confirmed the striving for attaining a political settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict under the international law, the support for the mediating efforts of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, the United States and France) and the agreements reached between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia to intensify the negotiating process and to promote the creation of conditions for building up trust.”

Today's Zaman -- Turkish diplomats and politicians will today be closely following a trilateral summit in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, where Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at a trilateral summit that will focus on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

Ankara, which last year agreed with Yerevan to establish diplomatic relations and reopen their border, insists on seeing improvement towards a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in parallel with its efforts to normalize relations with Yerevan. Ankara argues that partial normalization in the Caucasus cannot be sustainable as long as the parties fail to exert efforts for complete normalization.

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