Azernews.Az

BAKU – US ambassador in Baku Matthew Bryza has said it is time to reach agreement on the basic principles for settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

Bryza told journalists in the southern Lankaran region on Tuesday that the statement, issued last Thursday by the presidents of the three countries co-chairing the mediating OSCE Minsk Group, serves to restore stability in the turbulent region.

"This is a strong statement indicating that our president and the leaders of the other two co-chair countries [France and Russia] are doing everything they can to reach a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict," Bryza said.

In their statement, issued at the G8 summit in the French resort of Deauville, Presidents Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev called on the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia "to prepare their people for peace, not war". They urged the two presidents to demonstrate political will and finalize the basic principles of a peace agreement during the forthcoming summit on June 25 to be hosted by the Russian president in Kazan.

"We believe and hope that the presidents will reach agreement on the basic principles of the conflict resolution," Bryza said. "True, the Basic Principles do not mean a final peace accord, but this is a document constituting the basis of that accord."

Peace talks between Baku and Yerevan are underway on the basis of the Madrid principles, a peace outline proposed by the OSCE mediators. The Minsk Group co-chairs initially proposed the document in the Spanish capital in November 2007. In Athens in November 2009, the updated version of the Madrid Document was submitted to the sides. Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly said Baku accepts the renewed Madrid Document with some exceptions. But Armenia has yet to state formally whether or not it accepts the peace outline.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a six-year war over Nagorno Karabakh that emerged before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and ended with the signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory has been under Armenian occupation since the war. Mediators from Russia, the United States and France have led negotiations on Karabakh settlement but little progress has been made so far.