Interfax
Dec 15 2004

OSCE to send monitoring mission to Nagorno-Karabakh

Baku. (Interfax-Azerbaijan) – The Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe will send a monitoring mission to Nagorno-
Karabakh to check reports from Baku about Armenia’s plans to
establish settlements in the area, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister
Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists in London.

“The main thing is to define the format of this mission and the date
of arrival. We would like it to begin as soon as possible,”
Mammadyarov said.

An agreement to organize a monitoring mission was reached with
Armenia during talks between the Armenian and Azeri foreign ministers
in Sofia and Brussels in early December, he said.

The co-chairman of the Minsk Group directly settling the Nagorno-
Karabakh problem should join the monitoring mission, he said.

Mammadyarov urged Armenia to assume a constructive position in the
talks. “On the one hand we are conducting talks, but on the other
Armenia is building illegal settlements in the occupied territory. If
this continues, there cannot be any talk about serious negotiations,”
he said.

He welcomed the agreement with Armenia to continue the negotiating
process.

Azerbaijan lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh in a bloody conflict
with Armenia in the 1990s.