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Clinton presses Azerbaijan-Armenia peace efforts

06 July 2010 02:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought Sunday to revive peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia amid rising tensions in their long-running conflict over the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region, APA reports quoting â€œCBN Newsâ€.
On visits to the two countries, she also called on Turkey to move forward on stalled efforts to normalise ties with neighbouring Armenia and on opening their shared border.
Clinton said reaching a peace deal on Karabakh was a "high priority" and that Washington was ready to help.
"We stand ready to help both Azerbaijan and Armenia to achieve and implement a lasting peace settlement. The final steps toward peace are often the most difficult. But we see peace as a possibility," she said at a news conference with her Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov.
"We believe there has been progress. This is a high priority for the US," Clinton said.
Clinton met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev who said he expected the United States "to work closely with us and with others on the resolution" of the conflict.
"This is a major problem for us and the major threat to regional security," Aliyev said. "We want to find a resolution based on international law and we want to find it as soon as possible. Our people are suffering."
She also met with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, who said the dispute over Karabakh is "the single most important issue for Armenia".
Tensions over Karabakh have risen in recent months amid stalled negotiations over the status of the region, where ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control from Baku in a war in the early 1990s that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives.
At least four Armenian and two Azerbaijani soldiers were killed in fighting over the region in June.
Aliyev last month threatened to withdraw from foreign-backed peace talks after he accused Armenia of stalling the negotiations.
Clinton said Washington would like to see the sides agree to a set of basic principles on resolving the conflict.
"Now we would hope to see real progress on completing the basic principles, to enable the drafting of a final peace settlement," she said.
In Yerevan, Clinton urged Turkey to take steps in its own reconciliation process with Armenia.
"We urge Turkey to take the steps that it promised to take and that both sides continue to try to find the opportunities to open doors to reconciliation and normalisation," Clinton said at press conference with her Armenian counterpart Eduard Nalbandian.
Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark deal in October to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their border after decades of hostility stemming from World War I-era massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.
But ratification of the deal faltered amid mutual recriminations that the other side was not committed to reconciliation and Armenia in April announced it was removing the agreement from its parliament’s agenda.
Clinton praised Armenia for not withdrawing from the process entirely and said it was up to Turkey to get the process back on track.
"Armenia’s decision last April was very statesmanlike and impressive, and now the ball is in the other court," she said.
Clinton pressed Azerbaijan on human rights and said she had raised the issue of two jailed bloggers whose case has intensified concerns over media freedom in the country.
The bloggers were jailed on hooliganism charges last year after posting an Internet video of a donkey giving a press conference, lampooning the country’s docile press and statements by government officials.
Clinton said that despite "considerable progress" with regards to freedoms in Azerbaijan, "there are still lots of challenges".
"Democracy is not only about elections," she said, adding that "new technologies and social media can help the democratic dialogue."
Clinton’s was on a whirlwind tour of eastern European and Caucasus region countries that had so far taken her to Ukraine, Poland, Azerbaijan and Armenia. She was due on Monday in Georgia for the last stop on the trip.