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Britain's Straw meets Azerbaijani president

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  • Britain's Straw meets Azerbaijani president

    Agence France Presse -- English
    December 14, 2004 Tuesday 6:18 PM GMT

    Britain's Straw meets Azerbaijani president

    LONDON

    British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met Azerbaijani President Ilham
    Aliyev Tuesday in the Central Asian leader's first official visit to
    Britain since taking office last year.

    Straw said the two discussed oil, the major industry for
    petroleum-rich Azerbaijan, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline
    project intended to provide a major export route for oil from the
    Caspian region.

    "We fully support Azerbaijan's commitment to political and economic
    reform and to deepening relations with the European Union," Straw
    said, adding that Britain would continue to urge the state to make
    greater democratic and human rights reforms.

    Aliyev took over from his father Heidar, a former KGB general who
    ruled the former Soviet republic with an iron fist for more than
    three decades.

    After the elder Aliyev died from heart failure in December at the age
    of 80, his son, a former oil company executive, succeeded him,
    creating the first family dynasty in the post-Soviet Union.

    Straw said he had thanked Aliyev for Azerbaijan's contribution of
    soldiers to the US-led multinational force in Iraq, and to forces in
    Afghanistan and Kosovo.

    Azerbaijan is the only majority Muslim country to send combat troops
    to help the US-led coalition in Iraq. But as in Iraq, the majority of
    Azerbaijan's eight million people are Shiite Muslims.

    "I assured President Aliyev of our support for efforts to find a
    peaceful, lasting settlement to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh,"
    Straw said, referring to the disputed territory now under control of
    neighboring Armenia.
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