ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
January 28, 2005 Friday

Armenian activities on occupied lands affect talks – diplomat

By Sevindzh Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman

BAKU

Intensified actions of Armenia on the occupied Azerbaijani lands
“have a negative effect on the negotiations,” Deputy Foreign Minister
and special representative of the Azerbaijani president to the
Karabakh settlement negotiations Araz Azimov said at a Friday
briefing in Baku.

He said the question of illegal settlements on occupied lands, which
Azerbaijan had raised at the United Nations, was very important.
Azerbaijan “raised the question not for the sake of political
speculations but proceeding from international legal norms,” he said.

“We are ready for negotiations with Armenia but we think that
activities on the occupied lands have a negative effect on the
negotiations. So we suggest stopping these activities,” Azimov said.

He said materials on settlements and economic activities on the
occupied lands had been transferred to the OSCE mission made up of
experts of Russia, the United States, France, Germany, Sweden,
Finland and Italy.

The mission will go to the occupied lands in a day to familiarize
with the local situation, verify facts received from Azerbaijan and
draft a report. The report as such “will not solve the problem,” the
diplomat said. “Our main goal is to stop activities of the occupied
territories.”