BAKU: Azerbaijani Foreign Minister To Meet With His Newly-Appointed

AZERBAIJANI FOREIGN MINISTER TO MEET WITH HIS NEWLY-APPOINTED ARMENIAN COUNTERPART

Trend News Agency
April 23 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, 23 April / corr. TrendNews K. Ramazanova/ The foreign
ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Elmar Mammadyarov and Edward
Nalbandyan, will meet in early May in Strasbourg, Bernard Fassier,
the French co-chairman of OSCE Minsk Group said to TrendNews on a
telephone from Vienna on 23 April.

The meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign minister may be
held within the special meeting of Committee of Ministers of Council
of Europe to be held on 7 May. Slovenia will hand over chairmanship
to Sweden within the meeting.

It is the first meeting of Azerbaijani foreign minister with new
foreign minister of Armenia. The former Armenian ambassador Nalbandyan
was appointed foreign minister after the change of government in
Armenia as a result of presidential elections in the country. He
replaced Vardan Oskanyan.

"The further steps of mediators depends on the meeting of ministers,"
Fassier said.

It is possible that mediators will visit Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict
region and will discuss the ways of settlement of conflict with
Azerbaijani and Armenian government, he said.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began
in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since
1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In
1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group ( Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful
negotiations.

The French co-chairman discussed various ways of settlement of the
conflict with Armenian foreign minister a day ago in Paris, during
the Armenian foreign minister’s visit to France. The current stage of
negotiations on settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was discussed
during the meeting.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS