BAKU ANALYZES RESULTS OF AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS’ HELSINKI MEETING

Trend
Dec 12 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 12/ Trend News, I. Alizade/ The official Baku
is analyzing results of the Helsinki meeting of the Azerbaijani and
Armenian foreign ministers on the resolution o the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict and discussions held in the annual meeting of the OSCE
foreign ministers.

"We will reveal our position after analysis ends," Novruz Mammadov,
chief of International Relations Department of the Presidential Office,
said to reporters.

Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov and Edward
Nalbandyan met within the framework of the OSCE foreign ministers’
meeting held in Helsinki in early Dec. The talks were later attended by
the foreign ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries. The
meeting ended with a joint declaration.

Mammadov said Azerbaijan does not have any information about Russia’s
impeding adoption of resolution on Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of
the OSCE Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Helsinki.

"I have read about it in media reports. But I can not say that this is
Russia’s official position. Everything will become clear after Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov issues a statement on this matter. I don’t
think Russia will take a stance contradicting Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity," Mammadov added.

Mammadov said Russia needs most of all resolution of the conflict
within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, international law and
principles. He said Russia, Turkey, the European Union and the United
States became more interested in resolution of the conflict in a fair
way and in line with Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity after recent
developments in the South Caucasus.

Armenia has occupied 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory – Nagorno-Karabakh
and seven surrounding regions. The occupation began in 1988. Azerbaijan
lost the Nagorno-Karabakh, except of Shusha and Khojali, in December
1991. In 1992-93, Armenian Armed Forces occupied Shusha, Khojali and
Nagorno-Karabakh’s seven surrounding regions. In 1994, Azerbaijan
and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active
hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia,
France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful, but fruitless
negotiations.