Azerbaijan Says U.S. Proposals On Karabakh `Very Interesting´

April 8, 2006 — Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov today said the United States made him “very interesting” proposals on how to solve his country’s territorial dispute with Armenia.

Speaking after talks with U.S. officials in Washington, Mammadyarov said Baku would make its response public when U.S. envoy Steven Mann visits the Azerbaijani capital on April 18.

Before meeting with Mammadyarov on April 7, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly talked with the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents over the phone.

Yerevan and Baku have been formally at war since 1988, when the predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh seceded from Soviet Azerbaijan.

The United States, Russia, and France co-chair the Minsk Group of nations mandated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan.