Russian minister pledges help in Karabakh settlement

ITAR-TASS news agency
18 Aug 04

Moscow, 18 August, ITAR-TASS correspondents Natalya Lenskaya and Irina
Chumakova: Russia supports Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said today following talks with his
Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov. The Russian minister said
that Moscow “is ready to do its utmost to help settle the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict both as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group and also
as a nation”.

“Moscow is interested in finding a settlement to the conflict on the
basis of all the existing agreements. But only the sides themselves
can resolve the conflict and they can do so only through
negotiations,” the Russian minister said. “We cannot make a decision
for the sides, if they cannot come to an agreement themselves,” Lavrov
noted.

He expressed satisfaction with the resumption of talks late last year.

“We believe that the negotiations will be continued because what the
Minsk Group has done so far does not cover all the accumulated
problems,” the minister noted.