AZERI MINISTER, US OFFICIAL DISCUSS BOOSTING MILITARY TIES

Azeri Press Agency
Dec 7 2006

Baku, 7 December: The Azerbaijani defence minister, Col-Gen Safar
Abiyev, today received a delegation led by the US deputy assistant
secretary of defence for international security, James McDougall,
APA learnt from the Defence Ministry press service.

At the meeting, Abiyev said that Azerbaijani-US relations were
developing in all areas under the programme envisaged.

Abiyev touched upon the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. He said the
fact that the conflict had not been resolved was a great obstacle
to the development of Azerbaijani-US and Azerbaijan-NATO military
cooperation: "We will never put up with the Armenian occupation of
our lands. If the conflict is not resolved peacefully, the Azerbaijani
armed forces will liberate our lands from the occupiers."

The fact that Section 907 in the Freedom Support Act had not been
lifted completely restricted Azerbaijani-US cooperation, the minister
stressed.

For his part, McDougall said he agreed with his counterpart’s opinion
concerning Section 907. He said that this document’s provisions indeed
restrict US-Azerbaijani cooperation.