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Kerry Pledges To Help End Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh

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  • Kerry Pledges To Help End Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh

    KERRY PLEDGES TO HELP END CONFLICT OVER NAGORNO-KARABAKH

    Xinhua General News Service, China
    June 3, 2013 Monday 6:11 PM EST

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pledged on Monday to continue
    efforts to help end the long- running conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
    between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

    Prior to a meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov
    at the State Department, Kerry said "This is a frozen conflict, as
    we call it, one that threatens the stability of the region and one
    that we need to deal with."

    "The last thing we want is a return to war and to conflict," stressed
    the top American envoy, whose country co-chairs the Minsk Group of
    the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe along with
    Russia and France, which has been mediating the conflict.

    "I believe there is a path forward, and we will continue to work
    quietly and patiently in an effort to try to encourage the parties
    to be able to take either confidence-building measures that may get
    to further down the road, or to find a way towards a settlement with
    respect to this issue," Kerry added.

    The Azerbaijani minister said he believed his country can move past
    the challenges with the help of the United States. "All the negative
    outcome of the conflict will be in the past, and we will look to the
    bright future of successful cooperation and living next to each other
    as a good neighborhood," he added.

    Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been controlled by
    Armenian troops and ethnic forces since a separatist war broke out in
    1988. The two South Caucasus countries signed a cease-fire agreement
    in 1994 but skirmishes have broken out time and again despite repeated
    mediation by the Minsk Group.

    Kerry is scheduled to meet with his Armenian counterpart Edward
    Nalbandian on Tuesday.

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