AZERBAIJAN HOSTS 33RD SESSION OF OIC FOREIGN MINISTERS TODAY
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006
The 33rd session of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Foreign
Ministers started in Azerbaijan today. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham
Aliyev made an opening speech at the session (APA).
Mr.Aliyev said Azerbaijan is taking an active part in the ongoing
processes in the world as well as in regional projects.
“The session will also focus on the issues Azerbaijan are concerned
about. We are concerned about the processes ongoing in the world.
Thus, Islam is made the same with terror by Western media and some
political circles. We cannot consent to this. Islam is the religious
of prosperity and peace. Islam cannot possibly be regarded as the same
with terror. Azerbaijan is the victim of terror. Armenians committed at
least 30 terrorist acts in Azerbaijan killing over 2,000 people. Terror
has neither a religion nor a nation,” the Azerbaijani President said.
Aliyev attached great importance to civilizations, interreligious
dialogue. Stating that Azerbaijan is speedily joining the democratic
processes, the head of state noted that any national and religious
discrimination is unacceptable.
“We’ll express our stance and clarify this issue as a result of the
efforts by the Organization of the Islamic Conference,” he said.
Highly appreciating holding of such a distinguished event in Baku,
President Aliyev spoke about the background of Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan has gained its independence for 15 years. There exists
civil solidarity, economical and political stability in Azerbaijan.
The Gross Domestic Product increased by 26 percent in the country
last year. This figure reached to 40% in the past five months of this
year. In addition, poverty reducing programs are being implemented
in Azerbaijan. However, there are some problems that Azerbaijan
cannot solve it by its own. It is in great need of support by the
Organization of the Islamic Conference member states. One of these
problems is Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan which resulted in
at least one million people becoming refugees and internally displaced
persons. Armenians keep on destroying historical and cultural heritage
in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. This is the act of vandalism
by Armenians.
We support peaceful solution of this problem. However, we cannot
consent to this reality. Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity has
been recognized by the entire world. Despite the UN Resolutions on
the solution of the Nagorno Garabagh problem they lack mechanism
of implementation. Azerbaijan has never accepted the violation of
its territorial integrity. Armenians came to our lands in the 19th
century. Nagorno Garabagh is ancient Azerbaijani territory,” President
Aliyev underlined.

ARMENIANS BREAK CEASE-FIRE IN NK, AZERBAIJANI SOLDIER REPORTED TO BE WOUNDED
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006
Armenian Armed Forces’ units from positions in the occupied Yusifjanli
village of Azerbaijan’s region Aghdam fired on the opposite positions
of Azerbaijani Armed Forces from 22.00 on 18 June.
APA’s Garabagh bureau reports that the cease-fire was intensively
violated from 22.30 till 23.00.
Armenians kept on firing on the Azerbaijani Army’s positions until
early this morning. An Azerbaijani soldier is reported to have hit
a mine and wounded on this front line.
The Defense Ministry press service told APA that it was not informed
on the cease-fire violation and the wounded Azerbaijani soldier.

ISLAM COUNTRIES TO DISPLAY BEST SOLIDARITY
Hurriyet, Turkey
June 19 2006
“Islam countries will display the best olidarity among themselves,”
Turkish Foreign Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said
on Sunday. Gul arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan to attend the 33rd meeting
of foreign ministers of Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).
Speaking to reporters, Gul said that Cyprus issue and Armenian
occupation of Azerbaijani territories were among the topics on the
agenda of the meeting.
“This is the first time such a wide-scale OIC meeting takes place in
Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will deliver a speech
at the meeting and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will chair the
meeting,” Gul said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

STATE COMMISSION ON POWS, HOSTAGES AND MISSING PERSONS EXPRESSES ATTITUDE TO BIASED AND ONE-SIDED MEDIA REPORTS
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006
Recently, there have been several biased and one-sided media reports
commenting on the June 7-9, 2006 visit to Azerbaijan by Leo Platvoet,
the rapporteur of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and
Population, according to the State Commission of the Azerbaijan
Republic on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons.
The reports blame the rapporteur for his alleged double-standard
approach to the problem of missing persons, refusal to meet with
their families and accept related materials and so on.
Given the mentioned above, the State Commission once again informs
the public that PACE rapporteur Leo Platvoet met on June 8, 2006 with
parents and relatives of the missing persons, heard them all out, and
expressed his opinion on each case. During the 5-hour meeting over
40 interested persons suggested to the rapporteur that Armenia and
separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh withhold the information about
fates of their children, and asked PACE to help in search for them.
In response, Mr. Platvoet described the problem as very painful and
said it was the reason why the decision to prepare a special report
on the problem was made. He noted as well that the goal of the PACE
mission should be gotten right. “Our major goal is to determine the
scale of the problem, get acquainted with positions of the sides and
bring them together to resolve this humanitarian problem,” he said.
The State Committee considers that the PACE rapporteur was acting in
the framework of the mission he was charged with, and approached the
problem just in this context. To demand from him some out-of-mission
activities is simply far from being logical, and misunderstanding of
this is a result of inexperience.
At the meeting, Firudin Sadigov, Head of the working group at the
State Commission on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons provided its
participants with detailed information about the accomplishment
his group has gained so far and problems it comes across in its
work. He stressed the necessity for the opposite side to take real and
constructive steps to obtain positive results. Mr. Sadigov advised
that since the beginning of the conflict, 1381 prisoners of war and
hostages have been released, while the fates of 783 taken captive and
hostage are still unknown as a result of inhumane approach by the
opposite side. He added the documents related to the persons taken
prisoners and hostages during intensive military operations were
systemized and placed on the State Commission’s official website in
2000. Mr. Sadigov also expressed regret at the fact that activity of
the related structure in Armenia was badly organized.
He let the meeting participants know that the lists of 783 of 4604
registered POWs and hostages and related documents, photo and video
materials reflecting vandal actions – including destruction of
historical and cultural monuments, and administrative buildings in
Shusha, Agdam and Khojaly – committed by Armenians in the occupied
lands of Azerbaijan, as well as those confirming illegal settling
ethnic Armenians in these territories, had been handed over to the
PACE mission for it to use them in the final report.
These materials have also been stored on four CDs. Member of
PACE officially accepted them to go through. Apart from that, the
Commission states it had sent necessary materials to PACE even before
the mission’s visit to Azerbaijan.
The information on the meeting held was spread by the State Commission
of the Azerbaijan Republic on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons
through mass media, as well as placed on its official website.

BAKU AWAITING SERIOUS RESULTS FROM ACTIVITIES OF NEWLY APPOINTED OSCE MG CO-CHAIR FROM US
Author: R.Abdullayev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006
Baku is awaiting serious results from the activities of the newly
appointed OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, the US Ambassador Matthew Bryza,
Trend quoted Araz Azimov, the Azerbaijan Deputy Foreign Minister,
also a special envoy for Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution, as
stating to local television channel ATV.
Azimov said that the new Ambassador is well familiar with the
region, which is sure to accelerate negotiations process on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution.
“Excellent familiarity and preparedness of former US Ambassador
Steven Mann from the conceptual, political, and practical aspects
pays considerable role in the talks. As to Bryza, he is an experienced
diplomat well-familiar with the Azerbaijani realities. We expect too
much from his activities,” said Azimov noting his frequent tours of
the region.
The newly appointed OSCE Minsk Group co-chair from the United States
will be officially introduced in Vienna on 22 June.
Bryza paid a visit to Azerbaijan as the assistant Secretary of State
of the United States on 5-6 June. In his exclusive interview for
Trend Bryza said that The United States remains committed to helping
secure a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict “We
continue to believe that 2006 represents a window of opportunity if
the Presidents can make difficult and courageous decisions to move
forward with a settlement,” he underlined.

AZERI DEFENSE MINISTER MET WITH US TRANSPORT FORCES COMMANDER
Author: E.Javadova
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006
On June 17 General-Colonel Safar Abiyev, Azeri Minister of defense,
met with General Norton Schwarz, US Transport Forces Commander, ho
is in Baku with official visit, Trend reports quoting Ilgar Verdiyev,
acting chief of press service with Azeri Ministry of Defense.
General-Colonel Abiyev said Azerbaijan considers cooperation with
the US very significant, including military sphere.
As to Azeri-Armenian conflict, Abiyev said Azerbaijan is doing its
best to settle it within the limits of international legislation
and territorial integrity. However, Armenia is not interested in the
conflict settlements.
General Norton Schwarz thanked Azeri Defense Minister for warm receipt
and said his visit to Baku will serve the further development of
cooperation between the countries.

DEMOCRACY LEVEL IN GEORGIA
The Messenger, Georgia
June 19 2006
Freedom House, the international civil rights and democracy
watchdog, recently published its evaluation of the current level of
democratization in Eastern European and the former Soviet Union; the
report says the level of democracy in Georgia has improved, slightly.
The conclusions of this internationally respected organization were
welcomed by the current administration, but raised criticism from
both the opposition and numerous experts who are much more critical
of the situation in the country. Freedom House’s analysis is based
on a scale form 7 to 1, with 7 being the least free in terms of civil
liberties and political rights, and 1 being the most free.
The report says countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and
Turkmenistan, which are becoming fat off the energy resources they
posses, possess public institutions subservient to the ruling cadre,
and state governance that is mostly self interested. The major reason
for this situation is unsuccessful-or perhaps uninitiated-reform in
the legal system and the media. The high level of corruption in these
countries is highlighted by the report, with Russia described as an
‘oligarchy of bureaucrats’.
According to Freedom House, the democratic situation in the post
Soviet space in 2005 deteriorated in Belarus (6.71), Russia (5.75),
Turkmenistan (6.96), Uzbekistan (6.82), Kazakhstan (6.39), Tajikistan
(5.93) and Azerbaijan (5.93); all of these countries are described as
“not free”. Democracy strengthened in Moldova (4.96), Armenia (5.14)
and Georgia (4.86); these countries are “partly free”; Ukraine (4.21)
and Latvia (2.07) are both “free”. Ukraine is the only CIS member
that is officially a ‘free country’.
The Freedom House report was seriously criticized by opposition
representatives here in Georgia. The newspaper Rezonansi remarked
that Freedom House represents the opinion of the US State Department,
which tries to promote so-called Color Revolutions, and thus it sees
the situation as it wants to see it.
It is obvious that the situation in Georgia is far from ideal from
the democratic point of view. The reality is that the country will
not change for better if we turn a blind eye to the problems or if
we ignore the improvements.
All kinds of revolutions, be they color, velvet, bloodless or any
other, pose big challenges for any country. The Georgian experience
is proof of that. Since the Rose Revolution the media, particularly
television came under pressure. At the initial stage several critical
talk shows and TV stations disappeared, and only very recently have
some of these critical TV shows come back. The Georgian media has only
managed to recover its critical side due to the courageous activity
of some TV channels.
Certain democratic victories are obvious in today’s Georgia, the
current administration is at least aware of civil society, and
understands the necessity for democratic development. Problems,
however, persist.
Local NGOs and independent experts are especially concerned that
since the Rose Revolution the executive has become very powerful in
Georgia. The balance between the different branches of government
in the country has been shattered. Many questions arise concerning
the electoral law. The election threshold (the percentage of votes
a particular party needs to garner in order to be represented in
parliament) was raised from five to seven percent eight years ago
has not been decreased (most European countries with proportional
representation have thresholds of four percent). There are many faults
in the system of local self-governance; the incumbent authorities
are in such an advantageous position that pluralism will probably
not be achieved.
However if the ‘Rose Administration’ can take this criticism with the
due sense of responsibility, it should be easily able to overcome these
difficulties. Only then will it regain the sympathy of the population,
support it seems to have squandered since the months directly after
the Rose Revolution.

ARMENIANS DROP TAXES FOR GEORGIAN CARGO CARRIERS
The Messenger, Georgia
June 19 2006
Press Scanner
According to Rezonansi, MPs of the Armenian parliament ratified the
Georgian-Armenian agreement on international auto transport. Both
sides signed an agreement on April 25 in Tbilisi. According to Armenian
Minister of Transport and Communication, Andranik Manukian, the aim of
this agreement is putting contract law in order between the two states.
According to the agreement, carriers from both countries are
released from transport and customs taxes, taxes on certain vehicles
will remain, however, Currently, owners of cars pay 10.000 dram
(approximately USD 20); owners of buses pay between 20 000 – 60 000
dram (USD 40-120) depending on the number of passengers; and owners of
trucks pay from 15 000 to 150 000 dram (approximately USD 36 to 360),
depending on size of the truck and cargo.
Manukian stated that these taxes would be abolished and this makes
it possible to intensify bilateral trade and economic cooperation.
Georgia stopped taxing Armenian transport two years ago, while Armenia
had been continuing to collect taxes from Georgia. The paper noted
that neither Georgia nor Armenia have collected traffic taxes.

THE REPORT ON WARD CHURCHILL
by Tom Mayer
Swans, CA
June 19 2006
[Ed. Professor Mayer of the Univesity of Colorado at Boulder wrote this
text before going on a trip. He sent it “to several local newspapers,
but they all rejected it because it was too long.” Our thanks to Louis
Proyect and David Anderson who brought this valuable contribution to
our attention.]
(Swans – June 19, 2006) I have finally finished a careful reading
of the 124 page report about the alleged academic misconduct of
Ward Churchill. Often, but not always, I have been able to compare
the statements in the report with the relevant writings of Professor
Churchill. Although the report by the committee on research misconduct
clearly entailed prodigious labor, it is a flawed document requiring
careful analysis. The central flaw in the report is grotesque
exaggeration about the magnitude and gravity of the improprieties
committed by Ward Churchill. The sanctions recommended by the
investigating committee are entirely out of whack with those imposed
upon such luminaries as Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and
Lawrence Tribe, all of whom committed plagiarisms far more egregious
than anything attributed to Professor Churchill.
The text of the report suggests that the committee’s judgments
about the seriousness of Churchill’s misconduct were contaminated
by political considerations. This becomes evident on page 97 where
the committee acknowledges that “damage done to the reputation
of … the University of Colorado as an academic institution is
a consideration in our assessment of the seriousness of Professor
Churchill’s conduct.” Whatever damage the University may have sustained
by employing Ward Churchill derives from his controversial political
statements and certainly not from the obscure footnoting practices
nor disputed authorship issues investigated by the committee. Indeed,
the two plagiarism charges refer to publications that are now fourteen
years old. Although these charges had been made years earlier, they
were not considered worthy of investigation until Ward Churchill
became a political cause celèbre. Using institutional reputation to
measure misconduct severity amounts to importing politics through
the back door.
The report claims that Professor Churchill engaged in fabrication
and falsification. To make these claims it stretches the meaning of
these words almost beyond recognition. Fabrication implies an intent
to deceive. There is not a shred of evidence that the writings of Ward
Churchill contain any assertion that he himself did not believe. The
language used in the report repeatedly drifts in an inflammatory
direction: disagreement becomes misinterpretation, misinterpretation
becomes misrepresentation, misinterpretation becomes falsification.
Ward may be wrong about who was considered an Indian under the General
Allotment Act of 1887 or about the origins of the 1837-1840 smallpox
epidemic among the Indians of the northern plains, but the report
does not establish that only a lunatic or a liar could reach his
conclusions on the basis of available evidence.
The charges of fabrication and falsification all derive from short
fragments within much longer articles. The report devotes 44 pages
to discussing the 1837-1840 smallpox epidemic. One might think that
Ward had written an entire book on this subject. In fact this issue
occupies no more than three paragraphs in any of his writings. In
each of the six essays cited in the report, all reference to this
epidemic could have been dropped without substantially weakening the
argument. To be sure, the account given by Ward is not identical to
that found in any of his sources, but it is a recognizable composite of
information contained within them. The committee peremptorily dismisses
Churchill’s contention that his interpretation of the epidemic was
influenced by the Native American oral tradition. This is treated
as no more than an ex post facto defense against the allegation of
misconduct. The committee also discounts Native American witnesses who
support Churchill’s interpretations as well as his fidelity to oral
accounts. The centrality of the oral tradition is evident in many of
Churchill’s writings. His acknowledgments frequently include elders,
Indian bands, and the American Indian Movement. He often integrates
Native American poetry with his historical analysis. Three of his books
with which I am familiar, Since Predator Came (1995), A Little Matter
of Genocide (1997), and Struggle for the Land (2002) all begin with
poems. As a thirty-year veteran of the intense political struggles
within the American Indian Movement, Ward Churchill could not avoid
a deep familiarity with the oral tradition of Native American history.
By addressing only a tiny fragment of his writings, the report
implies that Ward tries to overawe and hoodwink his readers with
spurious documentation. Anyone who reads an essay like “Nits Make
Lice: The Extermination of North American Indians 1607-1996” with its
612 footnotes will get a very different impression. Churchill, they
will see, goes far beyond most writers of broad historical overviews
in trying to support his claims. He often cites several references
in the same footnote. Ward is deeply engaged with the materials he
references and frequently comments extensively upon them. He typically
mounts a running critique of authors like James Axtell, Steven Katz,
and Deborah Lipstadt. Readers will see that Churchill is familiar with
a formidable variety of materials and can engage in a broad range of
intellectual discourses.
Ward Churchill is not just another writer about the hardships suffered
by American Indians. He offers a very distinctive vision of what David
Stannard calls the “American Holocaust.” According to Churchill,
the extermination of Native Americans was neither accidental,
nor inadvertent, nor unwelcome among the invading Europeans. On
the contrary, it was largely deliberate, often planned (sometimes
by the highest political authorities), and frequently applauded
within the mainstream media. “[A] hemispheric population estimated
to have been as great as 125 million was reduced by something over 90
percent….and in an unknown number of instances deliberately infected
with epidemic diseases” (A Little Matter of Genocide, p. 1). Moreover,
Ward maintains that the American Holocaust continues to this day. He
thinks it is fully comparable to, and even more extensive than, the
Nazi genocide of the Jewish people during World War Two. The endemic
chauvinism and Manichaean sensibility this process has induced within
our political culture helps explain Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq, and
other American exercises in technological murder.
“If there is one crucial pattern that most affects our assessment,”
writes the committee, “it is a pattern of failure to understand the
difference between scholarship and polemic, or at least of behaving
as though that difference does not matter” (p. 95). Taking away the
negative imputation, I can agree with the latter observation. Ward
believes we are all in a race against time. Thus the main point of
historical scholarship is not to recount the past, but rather to
provide intellectual ammunition for preventing future genocides now
in the making.
Like most scholars, Churchill practices an implicitly Bayesian
(a statistical term) form of analysis. That is, he evaluates the
plausibility of assertions and the credibility of evidence partly on
the basis of his prior beliefs. That government officials connived in
generating the 1837-40 smallpox epidemic seems far more plausible to
Ward than to the investigating committee precisely because he thinks
this is what American governments are inclined to do. He discounts many
of the so-called primary sources cited in the report because their
authors despise Indians or wish to conceal their own culpability in
spreading the epidemic. And contrary to what the report says (p. 96),
many first rate scholars focus on proving their own hypotheses rather
than considering all available evidence even-handedly. Einstein,
for example, spent the last three decades of his life trying to
disprove quantum mechanics while largely disregarding evidence in
its favor. This is not research misconduct.
Virtually all the mass exterminations of recent times have evoked
amazingly divergent historical assessments and numerical estimates.
This is true of the Armenian genocide, Stalin’s collectivization
campaign and purges, the Nazi holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the Great Leap Forward, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Rwanda. In some cases
there is dispute about whether the extermination even happened, and
even when mass killing is acknowledged, numerical estimates sometimes
differ by a factor of ten or even more. These differing interpretations
are almost never politically innocent but, when honestly advanced,
they do not constitute research misconduct.
Neither do Ward Churchill’s assessments of genocidal activities by
John Smith or by the U.S. Army at Fort Clark.
The operational definition of academic misconduct used by the
investigating committee is so broad that virtually anyone who writes
anything might be found guilty. Not footnoting an empirical claim is
misconduct. Citing a book without giving a page number is misconduct.
Referencing a source that only partially supports an assertion is
misconduct. Referencing contradictory sources without detailing their
contradictions is misconduct. Citing a work considered by some to
be unserious or inadequate is misconduct. Footnoting an erroneous
claim without acknowledging the error is misconduct. Interpreting a
text differently than does its author is misconduct. Ghost writing
an article is misconduct. Referencing a paper one has ghost written
without acknowledging authorship is misconduct. No doubt this list
of transgressions could be greatly expanded. I strongly suspect that
many people who vociferously support the report have read neither it
nor any book or essay Ward Churchill has ever written. Perhaps this
should be deemed a form of academic misconduct.
If any of the sanctions recommended by the investigating committee
are put into effect, it will constitute a stunning blow to academic
freedom. Such punishment will show that a prolific, provocative, and
highly influential thinker can be singled out for entirely political
reasons; subjected to an arduous interrogation virtually guaranteed
to find problems; and then severed from academic employment. It
will indicate that public controversy is dangerous and that genuine
intellectual heresy could easily be lethal to an academic career. It
will demonstrate that tenured professors serve at the pleasure of
governors, political columnists, media moguls, and talk show hosts.
Most faculty members never say anything that requires protection. The
true locus of academic freedom has always been defined by the
intellectual outliers. The chilling effect of Ward Churchill’s academic
crucifixion upon the energy and boldness of these freedom-defining
heretics will be immediate and profound.
The authors of the report on Ward Churchill present themselves as
stalwart defenders of academic integrity. I have a quite different
perspective. I see them as collaborators in the erosion of academic
freedom, an erosion all too consonant with the wider assault upon
civil liberties currently underway. The authors of the report claim
to uphold the intellectual credibility of ethnic studies. I wonder
how many ethnic studies scholars will see it that way. I certainly
do not. Notwithstanding their protestations to the contrary, I see
committee members as gendarmes of methodological and interpretive
orthodoxy, quite literally “warding” off a vigorous challenge to
mainstream understandings of American history. Confronted by the
evidence presented in this report, the appropriate response might be
to write a paper critiquing the work of Ward Churchill. Excluding him,
either permanently or temporarily, from the University of Colorado
is singularly inappropriate.
Ward Churchill is one of the most brilliant persons I have encountered
during my 37 years at this university. His brilliance is not
immediately evident due to his combative manner and propensity for
long monologues. Whenever reading one of his essays I feel in the
presence of a powerful though hyperbolic intellect. The permanent
or temporary expulsion of Ward Churchill would be an immense loss
for CU. In one fell swoop we would become a more tepid, more timid,
and more servile institution. His expulsion would deprive students
of contact with a potent challenger of accepted cognitive frameworks.
The social sciences desperately need the kind of challenge presented
by Ward Churchill. His most strident claims may be rather dubious, but
they stimulate our scholarly juices and make us rethink our evidence
and assumptions. One of his main objectives, Ward has often said, is
“to bring consideration of American Indians into the main currents
of global intellectual discourse.” In this endeavor he has been a
splendid success.
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AZERBAIJAN HAILS NEW U.S. OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRMAN
Baku Today, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006
Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has welcomed the appointment
of Matthew Bryza as the United States’ co-chairman of the OSCE
Minsk Group.
“Bryza is familiar with the situation in this region and the Karabakh
conflict. He does not need to study the problem,” Mammadyarov told
journalists on Sunday.
The appointment of Bryza, who will replace Stephen Mann at this post,
indicates that “the U.S. government still hopes to make progress in
these talks,” the minister said.
The Minsk Group co-chairmen are to unveil a report on the Karabakh
settlement process at the OSCE Permanent Council’s session in Vienna
on June 22, he said. The session will also officially confirm Bryza’s
appointment.
“The co-chairmen have already come up with an initiative to hold a
new meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia. I
have agreed to take part in this meeting, and expressed my readiness
to hold as many meetings as necessary,” Mammadyarov said.
The Azeri authorities lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh,
apredominantly ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, as a result of
a conflict in the 1990s.