Agence France Presse — English
December 14, 2004 Tuesday 6:18 PM GMT
Britain’s Straw meets Azerbaijani president
LONDON
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev Tuesday in the Central Asian leader’s first official visit to
Britain since taking office last year.
Straw said the two discussed oil, the major industry for
petroleum-rich Azerbaijan, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline
project intended to provide a major export route for oil from the
Caspian region.
“We fully support Azerbaijan’s commitment to political and economic
reform and to deepening relations with the European Union,” Straw
said, adding that Britain would continue to urge the state to make
greater democratic and human rights reforms.
Aliyev took over from his father Heidar, a former KGB general who
ruled the former Soviet republic with an iron fist for more than
three decades.
After the elder Aliyev died from heart failure in December at the age
of 80, his son, a former oil company executive, succeeded him,
creating the first family dynasty in the post-Soviet Union.
Straw said he had thanked Aliyev for Azerbaijan’s contribution of
soldiers to the US-led multinational force in Iraq, and to forces in
Afghanistan and Kosovo.
Azerbaijan is the only majority Muslim country to send combat troops
to help the US-led coalition in Iraq. But as in Iraq, the majority of
Azerbaijan’s eight million people are Shiite Muslims.
“I assured President Aliyev of our support for efforts to find a
peaceful, lasting settlement to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh,”
Straw said, referring to the disputed territory now under control of
neighboring Armenia.