Azerbaijani, French FMs meet

Baku, January 17, AZERTAC Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has met with French FM Jean-Yves Le Drian as part of his working visit to France. The ministers hailed the bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and France, stressing the importance of high-level visits in deepening political ties. FM Mammadyarov briefed his French counterpart on the latest status of the negotiation process on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He emphasized that Armenian military troops must be withdrawn from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories in order to achieve progress in resolving the conflict in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. He said that the current status quo is unacceptable and unstable as repeatedly stated by heads of state of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries. Minister Mammadyarov, referring to the illegal actions committed by Armenia in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, drew Jean-Yves Le Drian’s attention to the facts of the settlement of Armenians from Syria in the occupied territories, as well as plunder and destruction of the cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people and the construction of a church in Jabrayil district, where Armenians never lived before. The minister noted that Azerbaijan supports substantive, intensive and coherent negotiations in finding soonest solution by a step-by-step settlement of the conflict, and added that the co-chairs will continue their efforts in this regard. Minister Mammadyarov mentioned that the government of Azerbaijan pays special attention to the development of the non-oil sector and emphasized the importance of the development of ICT cooperation between the two countries. He recalled that Azerbaijan's first communication satellite, Azerspace-1, was successfully launched into space from the French cosmodrome in February 2013, with the French Arianespace’s Ariane-5 missile, adding that in accordance with the agreement with Arianespace, the second Azerbaijani communications satellite, Azerspace-2, is expected to be put into orbit early this year.