Azeri, Armenian presidents urge Nagorno-Karabakh earliest settlement
By Yelena Pankratyeva

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 17, 2005 Tuesday 4:43 AM Eastern Time

MOSCOW, May 17 — Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia have confirmed
their desire to attain a “quickest breakthrough in the Nagorno-Karabakh
settlement process,” Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday after
talks between Ilkham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan.

According to the ministry, the meeting was held on the eve of the
Council of Europe summit in Warsaw with the participation of the
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, the United States and
France).

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov opened the meeting on behalf
of the OSCE Minsk Group. He “urged the two presidents to give the
necessary impulse to the talks and move forward the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict settlement,” the ministry said.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and co-chairman of the Minsk
Group from the United States Stephen Mann supported the Russian
foreign minister.

“After a two-hour tete-a-tete meeting between Aliyev and Kocharyan
they asked the Minsk Group co-chairs to continue consultations with
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on the basis of positive
results attained during this year’s discussion of the main components
of the settlement,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“The leaders of the two states confirmed mutual desire to achieve
a quickest breakthrough in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement
process,” the ministry noted.