U.S. Ambassador: In Nagorno-Karabakh conflict the USA focuses on preparing populations to peace

The USA is staying very actively engaged as a co-chair in the OSCE Minsk group, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy said live on Facebook asked to comment on the statement of Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov about Nagorno Karabakh settlement process.

“The USA is staying very actively engaged as a co-chair in the OSCE Minsk group and of course Russia is one of the three co-chairs, and we are trying to work as constructively as possible with the OSCE and the other co-chairs,” Tracy said, stressing that the USA remains strongly committed to the mediation and peaceful settlement of the longstanding conflict.

The ambassador also said that despite this global pandemic the co-chairs, the parties consulted virtually and discussed developments on the ground as well as the next steps in the process.

“Our focus as a co-chair remains helping achieve lasting peaceful settlement of the conflict,” she said.

Tracy also stressed that the USA is proud of the work they supported through the demining program to help in a humanitarian way the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“We think that the investment of $17 million over nearly the past 20 years has been extremely successful,” she said, adding that the USA’s involvement in the demining activity has concluded.

“Now we turn to another area - preparing populations to peace which is in support of the work of the Minsk Group to see what kind of activities we can conduct in this phase to help in achieving lasting peace in the settlement of the conflict,” the ambassador said.