U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to seek progress in talks over Nagorno-Karabakh as negotiations resume today in Vienna after a three-year hiatus.
In the evening of November 18, President Serzh Sargsyan had a telephone conversation with the US Secretary of State John Kerry at the initiative of the American side, President’s Press Office reported.
Discussed were issues related to the Armenian-American bilateral relations and cooperation, as well as issues pertinent to the meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on November 19 in Vienna which will be held with the participation of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office.
On the eve of the meeting in the Austrian capital, the US Secretary of State reiterated the unequivocal support of the United States to a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
The parties underscored that there is no alternative to a negotiated solution of the conflict and noted that it is necessary to find mutually acceptable mechanisms for the resolution of the conflict based on the fundamental principles.
“We are urging that process to move forward, and we will continue to be engaged in that,” Kerry said yesterday in a joint briefing in Washington with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Kerry said he’d spoken by phone with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan during the last three days.
The Turkish Foreign Minister also voiced hope that the meeting between President Sargsyan and President Aliyev will be successful.
“We hope this conflict will be ending soon. And that will bring peace to Caucasia; that will bring peace to the region beyond Caucasia. Therefore, today I am happy to see that Turkey and the United States look to this issue from the same perspective,” Ahmet Davutoglu said.
