The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was one of the key topics NATO official, James Appathurai commented on in his interview with AzerNews.

Appathurai, NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, put a broad focus on efforts towards ending the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute.

NATO has repeatedly voiced its preference for a peaceful settlement over an armed intervention when it comes to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s genuine resolution. The military alliance sees no direct involvement in the negotiation process seeking to find a peace-based end to the conflict.

“NATO has no direct role in the political process to find a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Instead, we support the Minsk process,” he said.

“We are concerned about the deterioring situation on the ground. There is no military solution to the conflict, and I hope that the political process will yield results. The NATO framework can only play a supplementary role – allows for contacts between politicians, diplomats and military from Armenia and Azerbaijan in the margins of multilateral meetings. I hope such contacts can have a positive impact, and I was pleased to see that President Serzh Sargsyan and President Ilham Aliyev met in the margins of last year’s NATO Summit in Wales,” he said.