The United States is greatly concerned about the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and is calling for unimpeded humanitarian access to the region, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing.
“I will say that we continue to be greatly concerned about the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. We think it’s important that residents of Nagorno-Karabakh be able to make the decision to leave if they want to leave and to be able to return if they want to return. It’s a decision that they all have to make as individuals, but we think it’s important that they be able to make that decision for themselves. And we think there ought to be unhindered humanitarian access to the region to make sure that populations in need can get the support that they require,” Miller said.
The State Department spokesperson also commented on the USAID deployment of a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) in the South Caucasus region to coordinate the U.S. humanitarian response.
“That team will assess the situation and identify priority needs to scale up assistance and work with partners to provide urgently needed aid,” Miller said.
He repeated the need for maintaining the ceasefire and ensuring humanitarian needs.
“I think what I would reiterate with respect to Nagorno-Karabakh is that overall, we think it’s important that the ceasefire be maintained, that the humanitarian needs be addressed, and that an independent international mission to provide transparency, reassurance, and confidence to the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh be established as soon as possible. That is our priority for dealing with the immediate situation and one that we are working to get off the ground.”
The United States has once again emphasized the importance of sending an international mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, noting that it is ‘quite serious' about it.
“We are quite serious about the international mission,” Miller said.
“We think the international mission is important because it relates to all of the other questions about humanitarian assistance, about humanitarian needs in the region. We are so serious about the international mission that the Secretary raised it in his call with President Aliyev, pressed him to support an international mission. You may have seen that the Azerbaijani Government came out yesterday [September 27] and said that they do support an international mission, and in fact in their statement said one of the reasons they are supporting it is because they have been pushed to support it by the United States. So we are quite clear on it. We’re working with our allies and partners on what the best mechanism to effectuate that is. But we think it’s important to provide transparency and to assure that humanitarian needs are being addressed on the ground," he added.
Miller did not disclose specifics of the possible mission because the work is ongoing.
“I can’t preview specifics right now because it is a matter that is ongoing with a number of allies and partners in the region. Both under what auspices that mission would be launched, who would participate, what its scope would be, what it would look like – all those things are under discussion. So I don’t want to make any kind of announcement before we’ve nailed down the details. But it is a matter we are working on,” the State Department spokesperson said.
