FM spokesman: Iran ready to mediate in Karabakh dispute

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast voiced Tehran's readiness to help resolve the territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region."If the two countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia show willingness, we wil be ready to use all our capacities to help resolve the dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region," Mehman-Parast said in the Armenian capital city of Yerevan on Wednesday.The Iranian diplomat urged Baku and Yerevan to peacefully settle their dispute and remove tensions in the region.Despite facing strong international pressure, the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders have failed to agree on the basic principles of ending the Karabakh conflict put forward by Russia, the United States, and France in 2011.Armenia and Azerbaijan remain officially at war over Karabakh and the dispute is a major source of tension in the South Caucasus region wedged between Iran, Russia and Turkey.No country - not even Armenia - officially recognizes Karabakh as an independent state.The rebel region has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since it broke free of Baku's control after a fierce war in the early 1990s that killed 30,000 people.