YEREVAN, JULY 23, ARMENPRESS. The Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in State’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Hoagland announced the journalists in Baku on July 23 that the USA maintains trust towards OSCE Minsk Group over the Nagorno Karabakh settlement.

As “Armenpress” reports, citing “Trend”, during the press conference organized after the meeting with the authorities of Azerbaijan, the American diplomat said, “The sides must solve the problem based on mutual respect”.

The military phase of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict started in 1991, when, in response to the NK population’s demand for self-determination, the Azerbaijani authorities tried to solve the problem by ethnic cleanings and full-scale war, which resulted in thousands of causalities.

The ceasefire agreement signed at the request of Azerbaijan came into force on July 12, 1994. Currently, negotiations over the conflict settlement are conducted by the mediation of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs (Russia, USA, France) based on the Madrid Principles proposed in 2007.

Azerbaijan has not fulfilled the 4 resolution of 1993 by the UN Security Council yet, continuing to incite arms race and harshly violating the principles of international right of not using force or threat of using force.

Armenia is confident that it is impossible to increase the productivity of the settlement process without the full participation of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic in the negotiations. The latter is a party of the conflict.