“One of our objectives is to find a way to bring the presidents together,” OSCE Minsk Group U.S. Co-Chair James Warlick said in an interview with Armenia’s Mediamax agency.

“I know that the presidents want this. We spoke with President Ilham Aliyev yesterday and he said he would welcome the opportunity to meet with President Sargsyan. But even with the best of meetings, sixty, ninety minutes two hours between the presidents are not enough. You can’t expect a difficult conflict, which has been all consuming for both countries for more than two decades, to be resolved by occasional meetings between the two presidents, even if they go perfectly. What we want to see is a real negotiation process take place, an intensification. It’s not just up to the presidents to resolve. Let’s bring the sides together to have a conversation and we can start with easier issues. Maybe we don’t start with status, corridor and all of these difficult questions that have to be resolved at the very highest level. But there are going to be a lot of other issues. It could be telecommunications, infrastructure and other issues instead,” he said.

The diplomat said that it is possible to have high-level meeting in nearest future. “The Azerbaijani President is ready for that meeting. But we don’t have a meeting for the sake of a meeting and I think that both presidents would say that. We have to prepare for it. I think it is the job of the co-chairs to try to frame the issues in a way they can talk about it. What is remarkable here is that the sides actually are very close. Both sides have recognized that the basis for the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is 3 principles and 6 elements. Of course there are details that we need to work through, but that is what we want to do. So there’s really no contradiction.

I think if we are to be successful in a lasting settlement we need to have a basis of trust and confidence between people of the two countries. We hope that Armenian athletes will be able to participate in Baku-2015 First European Games. We believe that such people-to-people events would be helpful in the future,” said Warlick.

Touching on illegal visits paid to occupied Nagorno Karabakh, Warlich said that they have regular dialogue with the separatist regime. “We expect it to be continued. We visit the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh and we will continue to do that. We want to hear their voices and take their views into account. We welcome the opportunity to meet with people there and hear their views. It is important to not only see the de-facto authorities. In my previous visits I saw a lot of young people, young families. People, especially who will be directly affected in Nagorno Karabakh, need to understand what the basis for the settlement is going to be,” said diplomat.

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