ITAR-TASS, Russia
Aug 19 2004

FM urges Russia to boost efforts towards Karabakh settlement

MOSCOW, August 19 (Itar-Tass) – Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mamedyarov has urged Russia to more actively participate in the
settlement of the situation around the mostly Armenian populated
Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno Karabakh.

`Russia is a co-chairman of the Minsk Group and we expect it to make
active efforts in that direction,’ the foreign minister told a press
conference at the Itar-Tass news agency on Thursday.

The problems of use of the southern part of the Caspian Sea should be
resolved positively, Elmar Mamedyarov said.

He said that he hoped a `meeting of the special working group for
settlement of the legal status of the Caspian Sea, planned for
September, will take place in Moscow at set dates’.

Mamedyarov said Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan had agreed upon
several issues concerning the northern part of the Caspian, `but
problems remain in the south’.

`I hope that political efforts will yield the same positive results
as in the north,’ he said.