The hope would be that the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia might at that point be able to come to closure on some of the issues that divide them, Sean McCormack, an official of the US Department of State stated. He was commenting on the result of the visit of the US Assistant Secretary of State, Daniel Fried to the South Caucasus.
Fried was to the South Caucasus working with the Minsk Group co-chairs, Russia as well as France, to see if we could find a way forward on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan, McCormack said. I don't have a readout for you, Nicholas, as to what sort of progress they may have made, he added.
В"I know that the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia are scheduled to get together pretty soon in Bucharest, in Romania. They made a run at it while they were in France. They weren't able to come to agreement., the US official stressed.
"We, working with the Minsk co-chairs, are hopeful that they can come together to resolve whatever differences there are. These are tough issues, we know. It's going to require tough political decisions on both sides. But we think that at the end of the day, taking this tough -- tough political decisions will benefit all the people, McCormack concluded.