US HOPES BAKU NOT TO USE FORCE TO SOLVE NAGORNO-KARABAKH PROBLEM
Trend News Agency
June 19 2008
Azerbaijan
The United States hopes that the Azerbaijani Government will be able
to ‘resist the view that the restoration of military operations’ is
‘practical option of settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’,
ITAR-TASS quoted Daniel Fried, the US Assistant Secretary of State
Daniel Fried, as saying.
Addressing the hearings at the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
Fried stated that ‘ Washington has already expressed its anxiety over
bellicose rhetoric by some Azerbaijani leaders’. ‘We called on the
Azerbaijani Government to focus on the peaceful settlement of the
dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh," he said.
According to Fried, ‘looking for the ways of the peaceful settlement
of this dispute is one of the key problems of Azerbaijan’. "The
United States, as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, is actively striving
for the peaceful settlement of this problem," he said. Though we
support territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, we believe that the final
status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be determined by means of talks and
compromises including international judicial and political principles".
According to Fried, ‘an important step for moving forward talks was
made by the Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Serj Sarkisan during their
first meeting in St. Petersburg on 6 June which aimed at discussing
ways of settlement of the conflict". "Both parties confirmed their
commitment to continue work within the Minsk Group and expressed
their preparedness to continue discussions over ‘basic principles’ –
the document worked out with the assistance of the Minsk Group which
sets forth peaceful settlement conception".