VISITING US DEFENCE OFFICIAL, AZERI MINISTER DISCUSS KARABAKH, TIES
Day.az website, Baku
12 Feb 07
Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar Abiyev has met Peter Rodman, the
US assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs.
"The time has come to decisively demand that Armenia, which has
violated norms of international law and occupied Azerbaijani
territories, pull out of the captured lands," the minister said.
Abiyev said that neither the talks conducted between the Azerbaijani
and Armenian presidents, Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan, nor
the efforts of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group to resolve the
Nagornyy Karabakh conflict peacefully have yielded positive results
so far.
Rodman said that the USA supports Azerbaijan’s sovereignty, territorial
integrity and independence.
The sides also discussed Azerbaijan’s relations with NATO and the
USA. Aliyev said that he wanted the Minsk Group co-chairs to intensify
their efforts to resolve the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict peacefully.
Rodman, who is in Baku on a visit, will also meet Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov today, said Tahir Tagizada, the head of
the ministry’s press and information policy department.