Azernews.Az

WASHINGTON D.C. – The United States’ relations with Azerbaijan are of strategic importance and bilateral cooperation is deepening, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said prior to hosting Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Washington last Friday.

"I just want to underscore the strategic importance of the relationship between the United States and Azerbaijan and the range of issues that we are working on together - bilateral issues, regional issues, even global issues," Clinton said, according to the US State Department's website.

"We are also committed to continuing to work through the [mediating] Minsk Group to try to resolve the longstanding conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh [between Azerbaijan and Armenia]."

Mammadyarov said the U.S.-Azerbaijan relations are "developing quite well". The minister thanked Washington for its efforts in trying to bring more peace and stability to the volatile region, particularly the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. He recalled the recent statement by the presidents of the United States, France and Russia, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, saying it was "helpful from the point of view that this unresolved conflict is on the screen of the international community".

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 summit to be hosted by the Russian president in Kazan in late June.

Mammadyarov said prior to meeting Secretary Clinton in his address at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based NGO, that an opportunity has now emerged for settling the Karabakh conflict, adding that the Deauville statement has increased chances for a solution.

The minister said he binds hopes with the forthcoming meeting of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and
Russian presidents.

He added that prior to the presidents’ talks the three countries’ foreign ministers will hold a separate meeting in Moscow.

Armenian media quoted diplomatic sources as saying that the Minsk Group co-chairs are due to pay their next visit to the region in mid-June in an effort to set the stage for the Kazan meeting.

Mammadyarov reiterated that Baku does not accept the status quo in the Karabakh conflict and considers it dangerous.

"The roadmap [for the conflict resolution] is known to everyone," he said. "In the first stage, the occupied regions around Karabakh are to be liberated, communications are to be restored, the displaced persons are to return home, and the last stage envisions holding nationwide discussions on the status of [Nagorno] Karabakh. I believe that there is still a chance to reach peace."

Mammadyarov said the Minsk Group co-chairing countries have a common view on this roadmap. He stressed Russian President Medvedev’s special role in this respect.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about one million Azerbaijanis, and ended with the signing of a precarious cease-fire in 1994. Armenian armed forces have since occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, defying international calls and UN resolutions. Peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.