Meeting of Heads of States and Governments of member- countries of the Council of Euro- Atlantic Partnership Madrid, Spain July 9, 1997

Speech of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Heydar Aliyev Distinguished Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I cordially welcome you and wish you successful joint work for the sake of security, freedom and prosperity of all the peoples of the world. We attach significant importance to the constructive dialogue and co-operation between NATO and new independent states, emerged after collapse of Warsaw Pact. With the end of the cold war, menace of nuclear catastrophe, division of the world into two hostile camps, the mankind has encountered with such new challenges and threats as military conflicts, aggressive separatism, uncontrolled spread of weapons, heavy military arsenal and missile systems capable to carry nuclear and chemical warheads. These negative processes greatly damage interests of our people, paralyse economy, hamper rapid integration of newly independent states to the world community, brutally violate human rights of millions of peaceful citizens. As you know, the Republic of Azerbaijan was subjected to an aggression from the Republic of Armenia, As a result of this aggression twenty percent of territories of our republic have been occupied by Armenian military forces, more than one million of our citizens have been ousted from their native lands and live in refugee camps under the hardest circumstances. Azerbaijan does it utmost to achieve just and durable peace, holds the most constructive position in the framework of the Minsk process of the OSCE. It has been more than three years that the cease-fire continues and we are determined to maintain it till the final settlement of the conflict. On Lisbon Summit of the OSCE all member-countries except Armenia supported the main principles of settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict: territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and Armenia, high status of self rule to Nagorno Karabakh within the Azerbaijani state and security guarantees for all the population of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, because of non-constructive position of the Republic of Armenia efforts of Minsk Group of the OSCE have not produced desirable results yet. We hope that Russia, USA and France as co-chairmen of the Minsk Conference could achieve signing of peaceful agreement and durable peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In this light we also count on the active role of the NATO and the Council of Euro-Atlantic Partnership which should not be indifferent observers to the conflicts in Causcasus. It is necessary to take into account that these conflicts are of serious threat to common European security. I would like to take an advantage of today's meeting and state that the Republic of Azerbaijan welcomes the creation of Council of Euro-Atlantic Partnership and considers it as important mechanism for political consultations and active co-operation between NATO and partner-countries. We take an active part in NATO's "Partnership for Peace" Program and we hope that this program will further contribute to the improvement of our military forces to bring them in an accord with aim and tasks to provide peace and stability in Europe. In conclusion, I would like to congratulate Presidents of Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic on their admission to NATO membership. Thank you for attention.