"I am appointing Louis L. Bono, a member of the Senior Foreign Service, as Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday afternoon, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
In this capacity, Mr. Bono will work with regional leaders to advance the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan and to address Russia’s ongoing occupation of sovereign Georgian territory.
Mr. Bono brings a wealth of multilateral and bilateral experience to the position, having served as Acting Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Offices in
Vienna and Chargė d’Affaires, and interim to the Holy See.
He has also served as Director of the Basrah Regional Office, on the National Security Council, and as an advisor to the Deputy Secretary of State and to the Under Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. He is retired from the Army Reserves, where he was an instructor at West Point and the Army War College.
"The United States is committed to helping Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement, including a long-term political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," Blinken said.
"Mr. Bono will engage bilaterally, with likeminded partners, including the European Union, and with international organizations, such as the OSCE, to facilitate direct dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
His appointment also reaffirms the importance the United States places on Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the role of the Geneva International Discussions on Georgia, the only international format addressing Russia’s ongoing occupation of 20 percent of Georgia’s territory," the Secretary noted.
Alex Raufoglu
Washington D.C.
Politics
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will hold talks in Moscow on January 17 and make statements for the press, according to the Kremlin's press service.
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On January 13, the trial in the case of public activist Nijat Ibrahim continued in the Baku Serious Crimes Court under the chairmanship of Judge Aygun Gurbanova. The trial was suspended after Ibrahim, in protest against the illegal arrest, began banging his head against the "aquarium cage", trying to commit suicide. At the beginning of the trial, he stated that he had been illegally detained for 4 months, and because of this, his family in Moldova was in a difficult situation, Turan announced this on its Twitter.
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The International Committee of Concerned Scholars (ICS) has appealed to the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, requesting his assistance in securing the release of the arrested researcher, Igbal Abilov. The ICS expressed concern that Abilov's arrest "may be related to his research on ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan, conducted in collaboration with scholars from Armenia."
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Georgia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maka Botchorishvili, met with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Georgia, Faig Guliyev.
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