AZERI FOREIGN MINISTER, U.S. DIPLOMAT DISCUSS KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

Interfax
April 16 2009
Russia

Progress in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was the
topic of a discussion between Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov
and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, who is
also a U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group.

"We discussed the current state of the settlement process with the
new factors that have emerged in the region taken into account. First
of all this concerns issues related to the Armenian-Turkish border,"
Mammadyarov told journalists in Baku on Thursday.

Azerbaijan is committed to the policy of non-interference in other
countries’ affairs, he said.

"On the other hand, if the Armenian troops are not removed from the
occupied territories, this [the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border]
would run counter to our interests," he said.

Baku lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven districts adjacent
to it in a bloody conflict between Armenians and Azeris regarding
Nagorno-Karabakh’s sovereignty in the 1990s. A number of countries
are mediating in the negotiating process to settle this problem.

Armenia and Turkey do not currently have formal diplomatic relations.