U.S. co-chair of Minsk Group arrives in Baku

By AzerNews

Newly appointed co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group from the U.S, James Warlick is already in Baku. Ambassador Warlick wrote about this on his Twitter page.

He is expected to hold a press-conference in Baku on Sept. 10.

The co-chair will also visit Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

The U.S. co-chair pays a visit to the region in order to start his mediation mission in settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

This is the first visit of ambassador Warlick to the region as a co-chair.

Warlick was appointed as the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair in August.

He most recently served as Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and lead negotiator for the Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan. He served as Ambassador to Bulgaria from 2009-2012, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and Director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs from 2005 to 2006.

In December, Robert Bradtke completed his term as the U.S. Minsk Group co-chair. Ian Kelly was named as the U.S. co-chair on an interim basis on December 21, 2012, pending the appointment of a new permanent co-chair.

The U.S., along with Russia and France, has long been working to broker a solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the Minsk Group, but their efforts have been largely fruitless so far.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.