Baku, December 9, AZERTAC

Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has met with European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus Herbert Salber on the sidelines of the 23rd Ministerial Council of the OSCE in Hamburg.

They discussed prospects for Azerbaijan-EU bilateral relations, as well as the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

FM Mammadyarov briefed Herbert Salber on the current state of negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He described the illegal presence of the Armenian armed forces in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as the main reason for tension in the conflict zone and obstacle to a political resolution of the problem. Hailing the high-level discussions in Vienna and St. Petersburg as a positive step in the right direction, FM Mammadyarov underlined that the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani lands will ensure a significant improvement of the regional security environment.

The Azerbaijani FM underlined that Armenia avoids substantive talks by pursuing a destructive policy, strengthens its military presence in the occupied territories, changes demographic, cultural and physical nature of these areas, and consequently tries to perpetuate the status quo.

Mammadyarov hailed the importance of developing a dialogue between the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

Salber highlighted EU-supported public projects designed to contribute to finding a solution to the conflict.