AZERBAIJAN VISIT BACK ON AFTER U.S. CHANGES WORDING ON SENSITIVE ISSUE OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH

International Herald Tribune, France
April 27 2007

BAKU, Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan will go ahead with a high-level visit
to the United States that it had postponed to protest U.S. wording
describing its dispute with Armenia over the territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.

A U.S. Embassy official acknowledged that the United States had
altered wording in a State Department human rights report that had
prompted the postponement, but stressed that U.S. policy on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has not changed.

Azerbaijan had announced Sunday that it had postponed the two-day
visit for security talks, which was to have started Monday, because
of "changes to the provisions" on Nagorno-Karabakh in the State
Department’s 2006 report on human rights abroad.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a territory inside Azerbaijan that has been
controlled by Armenian and local ethnic Armenian forces since a
six-year war that ended in 1994. Tension remains high between Armenia
and Azerbaijan, ex-Soviet republics in the Caucasus.

Azerbaijan was upset because the State Department’s country report on
human rights practices in Armenia did not include a statement saying
that Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijani territory occupied by Armenia.

The report on the State Department Web site Sunday said that in
2006 "Armenia continued to occupy the Azerbaijani territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories."

On Friday, the same section of the report on the site said: "Armenia
continues to occupy the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh
and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories."

A U.S. Embassy official, Jonathan Henick, said Friday that the U.S.
changed language in the report because it "had mistakenly led some
to believe there had been a change in U.S. policy concerning the
Nagorno-Karabakh."

He stressed there had been no change, adding: "I repeat that policy
for you again: The United States reaffirms its support for the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and holds that the future status
of Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of negotiations between the parties."

The United States, Russia and France, under the auspices of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have been leading
an international effort to encourage Azerbaijan and Armenia to resolve
the conflict for more than a decade.

Mammadyarov said the United States and Azerbaijan would discuss new
dates for the visit.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress