KARABAKH ISSUE DISCUSSED IN AZERBAIJAN

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[03:52 pm] 24 May, 2006

Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group Yuri Merzlyakov, Bernard Fassier and
Steven Mann met the heads of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan. The
meeting lasted 1.5 hours but no statement followed, agency “Trend”
reports.

Deputy Foreign Ministers of Russia and France and assistant of the US
State Secretary Daniel Fried also participated in the meeting. The
co-chairs will meet the President of Azerbaijan today after which
they will make a statement about the course of the settlement of the
Karabakh conflict.

The sides are to take decisive steps for the final settlement of
the conflict, but final clarification of the negotiation process
will be done at the end of the week, Daniel Fried announced. He
reminded that this is the third time he has visited Azerbaijan for
the last 6 months. “My aim is to find ways for the settlement of the
conflict. The population of the region has the right of peace.” Daniel
Fried underlined that “the states are to take steps in that direction”.

“President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev and President of Armenia Robert
Kocharyan are able to settle the conflict peacefully,” the American
diplomat thinks.