Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a joint meeting in Wales on September 4.

The sides exchanged views on the current state and prospects of the talks to settle the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Kerry expressed his strong concern over the recent violence along the contact line.

Following the meeting, the U.S. Department of State announced that Secretary Kerry urged the Presidents to strictly respect the ceasefire and take additional steps to prepare their publics for peace.

"The U.S. believes the cessation of hostilities and the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan will bring peace and prosperity to the peoples of both countries, and will contribute to stability in the South Caucasus," he said.

Secretary Kerry encouraged the presidents to work with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, who are committed to help the sides reach a peaceful and lasting settlement.

He also applauded the presidents for agreeing to continue their dialogue on key elements of a settlement.

The Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents last time met at a trilateral meeting on the Nagorno-Karabakh with participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin in President Putin's Sochi residence Bocharov Stream on August 10.

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. The UN Security Council's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.

Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.