YEREVAN (Armenpress)–Washington’s policy on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has not changed, a senior U.S. diplomat in Armenia’said Monday.
The statement, made by U.S. charge d’affaires in Armenia Joseph Pennington, came in response to questions by Armenpress regarding media speculations that a deterioration of US-Russia relations following the conflict in Georgia has negatively impacted their work as co-chairs in the OSCE Minsk Group, the chief mediating body working for a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict.
Speculation that a growing rift between two of the three Minsk Group co-chairs has put a permanent damper on its settlement of the Karabakh Conflict have been echoed in recent days by Zeyno Baran, the Eurasia Policy Programs director of the U.S. Hudson Institute. Baran, a proponant of Turkish and Azeri issues, is the wife of the Minsk Group’s American co-chair, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state Mathew Bryza.
“The remark was not made by a U.S. administration official and therefore it does not reflect the U.S. administration’s policy with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh, that has not been altered,’ Pennington said.