ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
September 21, 2004 Tuesday

OSCE Chairman-in-Office concerned about Karabakh conflict

By Sevindzh Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman

BAKU

OSCE Chairman-in-Office and Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi
is concerned about the protracted conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh,
Pasi’s special envoy for Azerbaijan and Armenia Filip Dimitrov said
at a Tuesday meeting with Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev.

“The OSCE Chairman-in-Office thinks that the problem must be solved
as soon as possible,” Dimitrov said.

Abiyev thinks that the Astana meeting between the Azerbaijani and
Armenian presidents “gives hope for peace settlement of the problem.”
He agreed that the conflict should be settled quickly for the sake of
“security of large economic projects in Azerbaijan with the
participation of European countries and the United States.”

The Karabakh conflict must be settled on the basis of international
legal norms and in conformity to the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan, the minister said. “Armenia must unconditionally pull out
troops from the occupied lands. Otherwise Azerbaijan will have to
free them,” he noted.