FRENCH CO-CHAIRMAN OF OSCE MINSK GROUP TO HOLD TALKS IN BAKU
by Viktor Shulman

ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 11, 2006 Tuesday 01:24 AM EST

French co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Bernard Fassier will
discuss with the Azerbaijani leadership on Tuesday issues of settling
the Karabakh conflict. According to diplomatic sources, Fassier will
hold consultations in Baku with Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev,
Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov and special representative of the
head of state for the Karabakh conflict settlement Araz Azimov.

The sides are expected to discuss possibilities for the intensification
of negotiations within the Prague process. It was launched by the
foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Prague two years ago
with the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group for Nagorno Karabakh in
which the United States is a co-chair along with France and Russia.

According to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, issues related to the
Karabakh problem settlement will be high on the agenda of consultations
of the American co-chairman of the Minsk Group, Steven Mann in Baku on
April 18. Mann is expected to discuss with the Azerbaijani leadership
certain proposals of the American side on the conflict settlement.

“These proposals are very interesting. Official Baku will study them
and express its view during Mann’s visit,” the Azerbaijani foreign
minister said in an interview to the AzerTaj state news agency. In his
view, the Karabakh conflict is the “largest obstacle to the political
and economic development of Azerbaijan and it is necessary to intensify
efforts in this sphere.”