AZERI OFFICIAL NOTES IMPORTANCE OF MEETING WITH NEW ARMENIAN LEADER
Azeri Press Agency
June 5, 2008
Azerbaijan
Baku, 5 June: Azerbaijan is taking steps to expand its relations
with all the members of the CIS, except for Armenia, both within
the organization and bilaterally, the head of the foreign relations
department of the Azerbaijani presidential administration, Novruz
Mammadov, has told APA.
Saying that there are initiatives, concepts and plans to expand
relations, Novruz Mammadov said that meetings regulating bilateral
relations will be held on the sidelines of the International Economic
Forum and the informal summit of CIS heads of state.
Asked about the format of the meeting between the presidents of
Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan, on the
sidelines of the summit and asked whether Dmitriy Medvedev will
participate in the meeting, Mammadov said that this will be the
first meeting with the new Armenian president, which is why there
is a need for this meeting. He said that he did not have accurate
information about the format of the meeting. "It is very important
for Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to know whether the Armenian
president has a constructive position and ideas on the settlement
of the conflict and any authority to solve this issue. Because the
developments that have happened in recent months, the massacre that
happened after the elections, various arrests, the situation in the
country and the closure of the media show that there is a split in
Armenian society and that a certain part of the population do not
trust Serzh Sargsyan. From this point of
view, this meeting will have a fact-finding nature for us and will
give us a chance to study the situation."