Kerry: Armenian, Azeri leaders not ready for Karabakh settlement

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday, September 29 cited the lack of political will by the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders as an obstacle to the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Addressing the Washington Ideas Forum at the Atlantic and Aspen Institute, Kerry said “…you have to figure out whether you can find in the adversaries a meeting of the minds on any of the interests or – and/or values.

“And that mixes differently with different people at different times. With Iran obviously and negotiating the Iran nuclear agreement, Iran wanted out from the sanctions, Iran wanted to – didn’t think it was worth the cost they were paying to pursue a nuclear weapon, and I think the Ayatollah made it clear that he was going to outlaw it, not go after it. He made a calculated decision – I think the right decision, an important decision – and so there was something to work with. But at the same time, there was a huge level of mistrust, a huge level of questioning about sort of where they might go at some future point in time, so we had huge interests in making sure the verification was as strict as possible, that we were able to answer people’s questions about the technology and the capacities. And ultimately you could see a way to get from here to there.

“That’s what you have to decide, you have to figure out. There are some frozen conflicts in the world today -- Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan-Armenia -- where you can’t quite see that right now because the leaders aren’t ready, because the tensions aren’t there.”