Abkhazian, Ossetian separatist leaders attend informal CIS summit in Moscow
July 19th, 2009 0:22
Russian President Dmity Medvedev hosted talks Saturday between his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts Saturday in the latest Moscow-mediated bid to end their dispute over a separatist enclave. Keen to burnish its credentials as a powerbroker, Russia has been mediating talks between the two countries over the enclave, now controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan. Armenian leader Serzh Sarkisian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev had face-to-face talks with other mediators on Friday but there was no indication how they went.
The three began their meeting at 3:30 pm after joining other leaders of former Soviet states at an informal summit during a prestigious horse race at the Moscow hippodrome.
The horse race has become an annual tradition which in the past has been attended by the CIS leaders and this year took place at Moscow`s Central Hippodrome. Only five of the 11 countries comprising a post-Soviet grouping known as the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, attended the horse race the Kremlin held in lieu of a formal summit.
Medvedev and his guests, who also included Armenian leader Serzh Sarkisian, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Emomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan, and Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, watched the race from a round table under a white tent decorated with white roses. Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko refused to arrive in Moscow.
Sergei Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity, leaders of the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, respectively, were also in attendance, although they were not sitting at the presidents` table.