From the talk of Heydar Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan Republic with the heads of international humanitarian organizations - New York, UN General Headquarters, July 29, 1997

Mr. Yasuishi Akashi!

Ladies and gentlemen!

First of all I am expressing my satisfaction with the meeting of the heads of humanitarian organizations and I am emphasizing the importance of much greater expansion of ties of our country with these organizations.

I thank the speakers for the valuable information on refugee problems in Azerbaijan, on the positive changes which have taken place in the recent years in the field of delivery of the humanitarian aid to them in due time. I thank for the warm words about Azerbaijan as a whole, the positive processes that are taking place in our republic.

I want to focus your attention that there is social and political stability in Azerbaijan which occupies a worthy in the world community. People are gradually uniting around the state, democratic transformations, economic reforms are carried out successfully, expansion of cooperation with the leading countries of the world has allowed to realize more effective measures for the improvement of living conditions of refugees in the country. From this point of view, the importance of assistance of international humanitarian organizations to Azerbaijan increases day by day.

When speaking about the most painful problem of our republic, that is the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, occupation of 20 percent of its territory by the Armenian armed forces, driving out of more than one million our citizens by force from their homes, it is important to pay attention to such a fact that the refugees are living now in critical conditions in tents, they are in need of the aid of the international humanitarian organizations, in the care of the world community.

At the same time it is necessary to note that render assistance the international humanitarian organizations to more than million Azerbaijan citizens whose rights have been trampled by the occupational army of Armenia, but the government of the USA cannot assist our country because of the \"Section 907\"adopted by the USA Congress.

It would be to the point to emphasize that now cooperation between Azerbaijan and America is developing, and I appreciate it very highly. However, I regret that \"Section 907\" obstacles the strengthening of these relations. Efforts of the international humanitarian organizations for repealing the \"Section 907\" are very important too. In forthcoming meetings with the congressmen, president Mr. Bill Clinton and other high-ranking officials of the US government I shall hold broad discussions in connection with the repeal of \"Section 907\", and also on the peaceful settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijanian conflict, and I hope very much, that these discussions will be effective, render positive influence on the peaceful solution of the conflict, speed the repealing of the unfair \"Section 907\".

Again thank the heads of the international humanitarian organizations for the participation in this meeting and I wish them great successes in the further expansion of cooperation with Azerbaijan.