Karabakh issue needs to be settled "on the issues of boundary lines and sovereignty" - U.S.

The United States called Wednesday on Armenia and Azerbaijan to de-escalate and to seek diplomatic solutions that "would be acceptable to all and can potentially be achieved," TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Secretary Mike Pompeo said that he is "anxious to hear" from the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia this Friday "what they're seeing on the ground and how we might get closer to what it is we think is not only in the United States' best interest, but in each of their countries' best interest as well."

"It's a complicated situation on the ground.  It's a complicated diplomatic situation.  And our view remains, as does the view of nearly every European country, that the right path forward is to cease the conflict, tell them to de-escalate, that every country should stay out, provide no fuel for this conflict, no weapons systems, no support, and it is at that point that a diplomatic solution that would be acceptable to all can potentially be achieved," Pompeo said

Separately, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the US ambassador to NATO, told reporters via virtual press conference that the Western military alliance is "trying to do what the U.S. is doing, what Russia is doing as well, and that is to try to stop the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh."

"This is an issue that has been festering for 30 years. There is a Minsk Group of co-chairs, which is U.S., Russia, and France, that is willing to go into the initial conflict, which is where are the sovereign boundaries of Azerbaijan and what can accommodate the Armenian population within those boundaries. That can be settled, and then this conflict would end."

In the meantime, she added, "we are encouraging both sides to discuss a way to stop the violence, stop the killing."

"This cannot be settled in a military conflict. It needs to be settled on the issues of the boundary lines and the sovereignty issues. And that's what we are pushing for, Russia is pushing for the same, as well as France. "

"And we hope they will agree to that group or any group they could both agree would be trustworthy to them to solve this underlying issue so that the conflict and the killing and the destruction can stop in that area," she concluded.

Alex Raufoglu 

Washington D.C.