Foreign Minister on French co-chair’s statement

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Feb 18 2005

Baku, February 17, AssA-Irada — The statement by the French co-chair
of the OSCE Minsk Group (MG) Bernard Fassier that the OSCE fact-finding
mission discovered organized settlement of Armenians only in the Lachin
District, has drawn differing responses from the Azerbaijani public.

Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists that the
French co-chair’s statement alone ‘can’t be considered sufficient”.
Mammadyarov said that Azerbaijan will take further steps on a basis of
conclusions of experts from the countries included in the OSCE mission.

“First, we must study the report to be prepared by the mission and
then see which path Azerbaijan will choose.”

Mammadyarov went on to say that the report will be prepared by a group
of experts of Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Finland. “It is early
to speak about the conclusions in the document,” he said. In his
statement, Fassier said that unlike the Lachin District, Armenians
were not settled in the regions around Garabagh “purposefully”.

According to the French co-chair, the population settled in the
occupied regions is divided into three categories: refugees from
Azerbaijan, those hit by the earthquake that took place in Spitak,
Armenia in 1988, and those who left Armenia due to socio-economic
hardship.*