Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend S.Agayeva / The forthcoming meeting of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and France, Ilham Aliyev and Nicola Sarkozy, is important for exchange of opinions both on bilateral cooperation and regional issues, Novruz Mammadov, head of the International Relations Department at the Azerbaijani President's Administration, told Trend. He was commenting on the Azerbaijani President's upcoming visit to France on 19-20 November.
" Azerbaijan and France have good relations and a dialogue should be held to continue the cooperation," Mammadov said. On the other hand, it is also important for Sarkozy to meet with the Azerbaijani President to get closely familiar with regional issues and know the Azerbaijani President's position on 'hot points', he stressed.
"Indeed, the meeting will focus on the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict," he said.
France is a co-chairing country at the OSCE Minsk Group, which is involved in the resolution of the conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus broken out in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since 1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful negotiations.
Mammadov said that during the upcoming visit it is not planned to sign any document on bilateral cooperation, because the visit is of working character. At the beginning of the year the Azerbaijani President was to France with official visit and signed several bilateral documents, he said.