Yerevan, 15 November 1996 (RFE/RL) - A U.S. delegation headed by State Department advisor James Collins arrived yesterday in Yerevan for talks with the Armenian leadership on the future of the war-torn enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh following talks in Baku Wednesday with Azerbaijani leaders.
After meeting with Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosian, Collins told our correspondent in Yerevan what he terms a "significant degree of agreement" has been reached with the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments on certain aspects of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.
He says all sides view next month's summit in Lisbon of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as an opportunity to strengthen the work of the OSCE Minsk group by making "substantive" progress in the ongoing negotiations.
Collins met with the leading opposition candidate in Armenia's recent presidential elections, Vasgen Manukian, as well as with the newly appointed Armenian Prime Minister Armen Sarkisian. He was accompanied by the U.S. special envoy to the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh, in the framework of the OSCE Minsk group, Joseph Pressel.
