Interfax, Russia
April 17 2009

ALIYEV RECOGNIZES CERTAIN PROGRESS IN TALKS ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH

There has been a certain amount of progress in talks on Nagorno-
Karabakh and Russia has been giving assistance in this direction,
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said.

The Azeri president thanked Russia "for the attempts to bring closer
the approaches [of the sides] to the settlement of the Nagorno-
Karabakh problem," at a press conference after meeting Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday.

"The absence of results cannot make us happy, of course; still we
cannot turn a blind eye on the existence of certain progress in the
talks. This progress supports our hope that the conflict will be
settled soon enough," Aliyev said.

"The approaches of the sides have come closer to a certain extent
recently, certain issues that use to be hardly soluble have been
agreed upon which serves as a good foundation for the continuation of
talks," he said.

However, "there are matters on which the sides cannot reach
agreement," Aliyev admitted.

Speaking of Azerbaijan’s approach to the settlement of the problem of
Nagorno-Karabakh the president said, "Our attempts have always been
based on a constructive approach, on international law, on the
restoration of historical justice. It is an open secret that for
almost 20 years the territory of Azerbaijan has been under occupation
and the entire international community has recognized the fact."

"We hope that in the next few months we will succeed in moving the
settlement process even further and bring about a solution that would
meet the interests of the two countries and guarantee the restoration
of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and the restoration of norms and
principles in our region," Aliyev said.