  A quantum field theoretic treatment of inclusive deep-inelastic diffractive
scattering is given. The process can be described in the general framework of
non-forward scattering processes using the light-cone expansion in the
generalized Bjorken region. Evolution equations of the diffractive hadronic
matrix elements are derived at the level of the twist-2 contributions and are
compared to those of inclusive deep-inelastic forward scattering (DIS). The
diffractive parton densities are obtained as projections of two-variable parton
distributions. We also comment on the higher twist contributions in the
light-cone expansion.
