Nagorno-Karabakh is a frozen conflict we need to deal with

US Secretary of State John Kerry has acknowledged that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a "frozen conflict" saying he believes there is a "path forward" to reach a viable settlement to this question. Kerry told reporters before his meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, late on Monday, that Nagorno-Karabakh "is a frozen conflict, as we call it, one that threatens the stability of the region and one that we need to deal with." By definition a frozen conflict within framework of international relations is a situation in which active armed conflict has been brought to an end, but no peace treaty or other political framework resolves the conflict to the satisfaction of the combatants. The term has been commonly used for the Post-Soviet conflicts in Central Asia, but has been also applied to other perennial territorial disputes. The US Foreign Secretary added that as co-chair of the Minsk Group, the U. S. has a "serious interest in helping Azerbaijan and Armenia to be able to find a path forward," saying "the last thing we want is a return to war and to conflict." "I believe there is a path forward, and we will continue to work quietly and patiently in an effort to try to encourage the parties to be able to take either confidence-building measures that may get to further down the road or to find a way towards a settlement with respect to this issue," he affirmed. The Minsk Group had been formed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to resolve this conflict. It was co-chaired by the US, Russia and France. Moreover, Kerry noted that there is also an interest in seeing Azerbaijan "continue to walk down this road, march down the road towards greater democracy to help build the pluralism of the country and ultimately to be able to find a way for peace and stability in the region and with its neighbors." For his part, Kerry's Azerbaijani counterpart said "we still believe that to all these challenges which we're facing together with United States will successfully move forward, including one of the biggest problem of the conflict resolution with the neighbor Armenia, with whom we are definitely and desperately interested to live in peace with dignity." He added that "negative outcome of the conflict" will be left in the past and that "we will look to the bright future of successful cooperation and living next to each other as a good neighborhood." Nagorno-Karabakh war was an armed conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994 in the small enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by the Republic of Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, entangled themselves in a protracted, undeclared war in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh. Full-scale fighting erupted in 1992. International mediation by several groups including the OSCE failed to reach a viable settlement. In 1993, Armenian forces captured regions outside the enclave itself, threatening the involvement of other countries in the region. As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azeris from Armenia and Karabakh have been displaced as a result of the conflict. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994 and peace talks, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, have been held ever since by Armenia and Azerbaijan.