Pompeo hails Nagorno-karabakh truce
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said the United States welcomed the ceasefire in Nagorno-karabakh, but urged the warring sides, Armenia and Azerbaijan, to move ahead in pursuing a lasting political solution to the conflict.
The ceasefire signed by leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on Nov.10 halted military action in and around Nagorno-karabakh, an enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated by ethnic Armenians.
Pompeo paid a fraught visit to Istanbul on Tuesday that included no official meetings and an agenda focused on religious freedoms that Ankara dismissed as “irrelevant.”
A group of 20 to 30 Turks shouted “Yankee go home!” as the evangelical Christian Pompeo headed in for a meeting with the Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople — the spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox world — to express his “strong position” on religious freedoms.
“An incredible privilege to be here,” Pompeo told the patriarch.
Meanwhile, France on Tuesday urged Russia to clear up “ambiguities” over the, notably regarding the role of Turkey and foreign fighters.
“We must remove the ambiguities over refugees, the delimitation of the ceasefire, the presence of Turkey, the return of fighters and on the start of negotiations on the status of Nagorno-karabakh,” French Foreign Minister Jean-yves Le Drian told parliament.
Le Drian said French and American diplomats will hold talks with Russia on Wednesday in Moscow to lit ambiguities linked to the ceasefire. He said the ambiguities were related to the issue of refugees, delimitation of the ceasefire, the presence of Turkey, return of fighters and the start of the negotiation on the status of Nagorno-karabakh.
Separately, Azerbaijan’s presidential couple have made a triumphant tour of the territories recaptured from Armenian forces in fierce clashes over the disputed Nagorno-karabakh region that ended in Yerevan’s humiliating defeat. Cheering crowds greeted strongman Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva as they travelled Monday to Jebrayil and Fizuli districts, sporting military fatigues, pictures and video released on Tuesday by the Azerbaijani presidency showed.
“There will be no (autonomous) status for Karabakh. Azerbaijan is a unified country,” Aliyev said as he was driving an Azerbaijanimade armoured car Azerkan through the roads of Fizuli district.