OSCE Minsk Group meets with Azeri foreign minister
16.07.2004 12:04:00 GMT
Baku. (Interfax-Azerbaijan) – The co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group
for settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict met with Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammedyarov in Baku on Friday.
“We held excellent negotiations with the Azerbaijani foreign
minister,” French Minsk Group co-chairman Henry Jacolen told Interfax
following the meeting.
Jacolen and the other co-chairmen, Yury Merzlyakov of Russia and
Stephen Mann of the U.S., arrived in Baku to offer new proposals on
settling the Nagorno-Karabakh problem to the Azerbaijani
leadership. The international mediators had earlier visited Armenia
and Nagorno-Karabakh for the same purpose.
Merzlyakov earlier told the press: “There are new ideas, but we have
to negotiate with the Azerbaijani leadership first.” Commenting on
proposals that Nagorno-Karabakh’s representatives be involved in the
talks, he said this issue is up to the negotiating parties to
decide. “In my view, all parties should take part in the
negotiations,” he said.
Nagorno-Karabakh is an Azerbaijani province populated mostly by ethnic
Armenians. Baku lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other
districts adjacent to it after a bloody conflict with Armenia in the
1990s.
The UN Security Council has issued a number of resolutions condemning
the occupation of Azerbaijani territory and demanded that Armenian
units be pulled out of the territory. The OSCE Minsk Group, which is
composed of representatives from the U.S., Russia, and France, is
mediating to help resolve the conflict.