AZERBAIJANI FM ELMAR MAMMADYAROV AND UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE NICHOLAS BURNS DISCUSS PROBLEM OF IRAN

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 4 2007

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has met with U.S
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns in
UN headquarters in the framework of his working visit to New York,
APA reports quoting AzerTaj State Agency.

Closed meeting lasted half an hour. OSCE Minsk Group co-chair Matthew
Bryza also participated in the meeting.

Nicholas Burns stressed necessity of touching on achieving progress
in Nagorno Karabakh conflict in the debates.

"I met with Armenian Foreign Minister not long ago. We will continue
these debates and we hope that we will give impetus on achieving
progress in the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict. We exchanged
views on energy issue later on. Americans regard Azerbaijan one of
the main regions of the world as a transit country. We will do our
best for Azerbaijan for achieving success in this sector. Azerbaijan
has rare geographical position in uniting Central Asia and Caucasus
to Europe. Project envisaging transportation of Azerbaijani gas to
Europe is of great importance. US government is against the domination
of one country in gas insurance of Europe, we want to see variety
in this field. We are planning to carry out high-level debates with
Azerbaijani government regarding these issues," he said.

Nicholas Burns stated that he touched on problem of Iran in his
meeting with Elmar Mammadyarov.

"We also spoke about Iran in the meeting. I informed the minister
that US will continue to support sanctions against Iran in UN Security
Council. We are against Iranian government’s efforts in armament and
financing "HAMAS", "Hizbullah" and so on," he said.