US diplomat: US official’s remarks not aimed at Karabakh authorities

US official’s remarks not aimed at Karabakh authorities, US diplomat says

Mediamax news agency
19 Jan 05

YEREVAN

The recent statement by US Assistant State Secretary for European and
Eurasian Affairs Elizabeth Jones had to do with Russia’s policy and
was not intended to criticize the Nagornyy Karabakh authorities.

This statement was made by the assistant to the US co-chairman of the
OSCE Minsk Group, (?Elizabeth Ruth), in a telephone conversation with
the permanent representative of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic in the
USA, Vardan Barsegyan, on 18 January, the press service of the
Nagornyy Karabakh Republic told Mediamax today.

The Foreign Ministry’s press service said that on 14 January The
Moscow Times newspaper published Elizabeth Jones’s comments concerning
the role and interests of Russia in resolving conflicts in post-Soviet
republics.

“In those comments, Mrs Jones made ambiguous statements about Nagornyy
Karabakh,” the Foreign Ministry’s press service said.

[Jones said: “It is in Russia’s interests that Dniester, South
Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagornyy Karabakh are stable and incorrupt and
that the criminal separatist regimes ruling there are brought down.”]