Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick arrived in Azerbaijan to discuss a peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with officials.

During President Ilham Aliyev's meeting with Warlick on October 21, the parties discussed prospects for the Azerbaijani-U.S. relations, as well as the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

This is Warlick's second visit to Azerbaijan as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. Earlier, he visited Azerbaijan in September.

The U.S., along with Russia and France, has long been working to broker a solution of the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the Minsk Group, but their efforts have been largely fruitless so far.

"Just arrived in Baku. With elections behind Azerbaijan and Armenia, let's work on a negotiated settlement for Nagorno-Karabakh," Warlick said on Twitter upon arrival.

Warlick also referred on his Twitter page to a recent ceasefire violation on the contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops. He said this incident on the Line of Contact violating the 1994 ceasefire should be investigated impartially.

The armistice breach by Armenian armed forces suspended a regular OSCE monitoring on the Line of Contact between the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops located south of the village of Ashagi Seyidahmadli in Azerbaijan's Fizuli region on October 17.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs expect to visit the region in November to discuss with the presidents their planned summit meeting later this year.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.