Azernews.Az

BAKU – Iranian Ambassador in Baku Mahammad Bagir Bahrami has accused the United States and Israel of impeding a settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

"At the time Iran sought to act as a mediator between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the early 1990s [when the two countries were fighting a war], the [ancient Azerbaijani town of] Shusha was occupied, and the U.S. and Israel have a hand in this," Bahrami told reporters. "If it wasn’t for these two countries, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict would have been resolved a long time ago."

Shusha, which was founded in the 1750s, is located in the Armenia-occupied Nagorno Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces invaded the town in May 1992, when Baku was holding peace talks with Yerevan in Tehran.

Bahrami said Washington and Tel-Aviv are worried by the rapprochement between Iran and Azerbaijan.

The ambassador reiterated that Iran supports Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and is ready to assist in settling the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Armenia has been occupying over 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory since the 1990s war, violating international law. The OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France, is brokering peace talks, which have been largely unsuccessful so far.