James Warlick: Certainly we will be continue the dialogue

As it was already informed, OSCE MG co-chairs have visited the region to continue discussions about the Nagorno-Karabakh issue settlement. First, they visited Azerbijan and met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. And now they are expected to visit Armenia and meet Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. 

US co-chair James Warlick had an interview with Azerbaijani Press Agency and answered to some questions about the Karabakh issue and ceasefire violation cases.

“We were actually encouraged after November 19th, there was a period when ceasefire was respected by both sides. The number of incidents felt dramatically and we took that as an encouraging sign. Now we know that ceasefire is very fragile. Events of past few weeks demonstrated that. The new tensions are not helpful as we try to move forward. We need to ensure that there is trust on all sides that the atmosphere is conducive to make progress. And we hope that the ceasefire can be respected especially we are entering the period of Olympics in just few days. And I hope that both parties can commit themselves to fully respect the ceasefire and we work through for some issues of the settlement. I think the new tensions do have an impact on negotiations. I think one of the difficulties is that after 20 years no peace-no war there is distrust among the parties. That’s why the respect of ceasefire is important to try to build up that trust in each other in that confidence in all sides. And we, as mediators, would like to try to build on that. The ceasefire is fragile, we understand that it is not perfect ceasefire and we are not looking for that. Bu t we want to see the commitments from all parties to respect the ceasefire and minimize violence, deaths and injuries not only on the line of contact but on all the Armenia-Azerbaijan border”, Warlick said answering to the question about the negotiating process and tensions on the border.

Answering to the question about the next step of the OSCE MG co-chairs, the mediator said:

“First we have to hear the President Sargsyan and get to Yerevan. As far as the president meeting, it will be up to them to decide to have such a meeting or not, whether such a meeting will be helpful at the present time. We will continue work with both presidents, foreign ministers, we continue interesting discussion with all parties and will try to facilitate a way forward. Until we got to Yerevan on this trip it is hard to predict what is the next step will be, but certainly we will be continue the dialogue”.