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  • BAKU: Settlement depends on conflicting sides

    AzerNews, Azerbaijan
    Feb 3 2005

    Settlement depends on conflicting sides

    OSCE Minsk Group may only foster dialogue - French co-chair
    The OSCE Minsk Group cannot settle the Upper Garabagh conflict
    instead of Azerbaijan and Armenia, the new French co-chair of the
    OSCE Minsk Group, Bernard Fassier, said. He stated that the co-chairs
    may assist the sides only in fostering dialogue.

    First of all, trust should be established between the two presidents
    and afterwards, between the two peoples, Fassier told a news
    conference during his two-day familiarization visit to Baku last
    week.
    The co-chair said the OSCE MG does not have considerable resources to
    assist in resolving the problem. "The Minsk Group is a political
    forum and it may put forth political ideas. However, it has no
    financial resources to implement them".

    As for Armenia's withdrawing its armed forces from the occupied Azeri
    land, Fassier said that the "the co-chairs are unlikely to say
    anything specific in this respect, as a relevant decision should be
    made by the conflicting sides".
    President Ilham Aliyev, in a meeting with Fassier on Thursday, stated
    that the OSCE-mediated talks on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over
    Upper Garabagh, carried out over the last ten years, had been
    fruitless.
    Aliyev said, however, that the active work carried out by the OSCE MG
    of late and the ongoing talks between the two countries' foreign
    ministers "allow us to hope for certain progress in the settlement
    process".
    The President emphasized that Upper Garabagh and the adjacent seven
    regions, which are historically Azerbaijani territories, are occupied
    by Armenian armed forces and that Azerbaijan entered the United
    Nations with these areas included within its boundaries. Azerbaijan's
    position on the conflict resolution, based on the principles of the
    country's territorial integrity, remains unchanged, he said.
    Fassier said that the unresolved status of the conflict is impeding
    not only peace and stability in the South Caucasus, but also the
    implementation of global economic projects in a wider area, including
    Central Asia. He also voiced confidence that his meeting with
    President Aliyev would provide him with broader information on this
    'sensitive' conflict.
    The new co-chair acted as the French ambassador to Georgia in
    1993-1997 and to Belarus in 1997-2002. He succeeded the previous
    co-chair Henry Jacolin late in 2004.
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