ELMAR MAMEDYAROV: "OFFICIAL BAKU IS READY TO GRANT AUTONOMY TO NAGORNO GARABAGH WITHIN THE AZERBAIJAN REPUBLIC"

Today
itics/41836.html
Dec 13 2007
Azerbaijan

"Official Baku is ready to grant autonomy to Nagorno Garabagh within
the Azerbaijan Republic", Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar
Mamedyarov told reporters Thursday.

"We do not see any problem in granting autonomy to Nagorno Garabagh.

We have declared repeatedly that if the Armenian community of Nagorno
Garabagh wishes to receive the status of Autonomy, such patterns are
available in most European countries and Russia, where representatives
of different nations reside together", he said, citing Tatarstan and
Bashkiria in Russia.

At the same time, he said it does not imply the violation of the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan or rule out the release of the
occupied lands of Azerbaijan.

"This is a phased process and the problem lies with the definition
of the process of the release, deployment of peacekeeping forces on
the occupied lands, restoration of communications and roads, mine
clearing, returning displaced persons to their native lands and many
other issues", E.Mamedyarov noted.

According to him, official Baku has a normal attitude towards the
proposals on the peaceful settlement of theAzerbaijan-Armenia conflict,
presented to the conflicting parties by the co-chairs of the OSCE
Minsk group and further introduced to the presidents of Azerbaijan
and Armenia.

He also noted that these proposals do not serve as a ground for the
next meeting of the two presidents.

According to Mamedyarov, Azerbaijan speaks for continuation of the
Prague negotiation process and stated that the co-chairs of the Minsk
group will pay the next visit to the region to continue talks in mid
January of 2008.