AZERBAIJAN NOT DITCHING MINSK GROUP FORMAT IN KARABAKH TALKS – OFFICIAL

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS General Newswire
September 18, 2006 Monday 3:04 PM MSK

Azerbaijan has no plans to abandon the format of the OSCE Minsk
group in talks on the settlement in Nagorno Karabakh, Tair Tagizade,
head of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s information department,
has told Interfax.

"It remains a priority for us," he said commenting on a statement by
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian alleging that Azerbaijan
was withdrawing from negotiations in the OSCE framework and taking
it to the U.N. by having the issue of frozen conflicts in the former
Soviet Union included in the agenda of the current U.N. General
Assembly session.

"The process is not being withdrawn from the framework of OSCE because
Azerbaijan is not rejecting the format of the Minsk group," he said.

He added that Armenian authorities were evading talks with Azerbaijan
on the settlement of the conflict.

Earlier Oskanian said he had no plans for a bilateral meeting with
his Azerbaijani colleague. He said the ministers were likely to have
more separate meetings with Minsk group cochairmen.

"The reluctance to meet as a rule is the last argument of someone
who has no arguments left," Tagizade said.