Turkey to hold peace talks on Nagorno-Karabakh
ANKARA, June 18 (Reuters) - Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said on Tuesday he would meet Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan and Azeri President Haydar Aliyev later this month to seek an end to a long-standing territorial dispute.

Turkey initiated new talks between the Caucasus rivals on the sidelines of a NATO summit last month in a bid to settle their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly ethnic Armenian enclave inside the borders of Azerbaijan.

"Quite contrary to my expectations, that meeting was very agreeable and substantive. I was not expecting that," Cem told reporters.

"We're going to have another meeting in Istanbul with both Armenia's foreign minister and, if he finds it appropriate and has time, Azeri President Aliyev," he said, adding Turkey saw itself as a "facilitator" in resolving the stand-off.

Aliyev and Oskanyan are expected to attend a meeting of Black Sea nations in Istanbul on June 25.

Turkey has close ethnic and cultural ties with Azerbaijan, but tensions regularly flare in relations with Armenia.

U.S. State Department: "Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan"

BBC Monitoring Service reported on June 15, 2002 that Philip Reeker, spokesman for the US State Department, said that "the United States of America backs the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and recognizes Nagorny Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan." Karabakh was invaded by Armenian forces and then declared unilaterally an Armenian republic.