“Regarding the Karabakh crisis, if the two countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia show willingness, we are ready to use all capacities to move in the direction [of resolving the dispute],” Mehmanparast said on Wednesday.
The Iranian official stressed regional cooperation to facilitate a peaceful resolution of crises, calling on Azerbaijan and Armenia to peacefully settle their dispute and remove tensions in the region.
The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Ethnic Armenian forces took control over the enclave, which accounts for 16 percent of Azerbaijan, in the early 1990s during a six-year war with Azerbaijan that lasted from February 1988 to May 1994.
The conflict left an estimated 30,000 people dead and one million displaced before the two sides agreed to a cease-fire in 1994. However, a peace accord has never been signed and the dispute still remains unsettled.
Iran has on several occasions offered to mediate in the dispute.
YH/EA
MNA
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Publish Date: 4 April 2013 - 11:17
TEHRAN, Apr 4 (MNA) – Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has voiced Tehran’s readiness to mediate between Azerbaijan and Armenia to bring about a peaceful resolution of the Karabakh dispute.