Baku Today, Azerbaijan
May 7 2004

Armenia’s Returning Occupied Districts To Be Debated In Strasbourg
Meeting

Yerevan’s releasing seven occupied Azerbaijani districts in return
for the latter’s opening communication links to Armenia will be
discussed during the foreign ministers Elmar Mammadyarov and Vardan
Oskanian’s upcoming meeting.
The meeting planned to be held in Strasbourg on May 12, the 525th
newspaper reported on Friday, citing Mammadyarov.
Mammadyarov said that the peace nogotiations would not be continued
unless they yield tangible results.

`We should not hold meetings just for the sake of meetings,’
Mammadyarov said, adding that the sides would define directions for
future negotiations in Strasbourg.

The Azeri foreign minister said the Strasbourg meeting would be
attended also by the OSCE Minsk group’s co-chairs, and special
representatives of the both conflicting countries.

President Ilham Aliyev also stated on Wednesday that his government
hopes for finding a peaceful solution to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The president said if there were no hope, he wouldn’t keep supporting
the talks.

Armenia occupied Azerbaijan’s former autonomous region of
Nagorno-Karabakh and also seven districts surrounding it in 1991-94
war. Despite a shaky seace-fire signed between the two countries on
12 May 1994, the peace talks mediated by OSCE’s Minsk group have
failed to find a settlement to the conflict.