James Warlick: Joint use of water resources would be positive step

The US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group has made a new tweet, this time focusing on a water reservoir in Nagorno-Karabakh’s Martakert region.

Ambassador James Warlick has posted a photo of the Sarsang reservoir in his microblog, saying that it would be a positive step by the Armenians and Azerbaijanis to jointly manage the water resources.

“This is Sarsang reservoir. It would be a positive step if the sides could jointly manage water resources,” the diplomat tweeted.

In an interview with the Azerbaijani media last week, Warlick voiced his concerns about the continuing status quo over Karabakh, describing the situation as unsustainable and increasingly dangerous.

In an earlier tweet, the US diplomat expressed his gratitude to all those who made comments on his speech at the Carnegie Foundation on May 7.

The OSCE Minsk Group, composed of US, French and Russian co-chairs, has been spearheading the peace efforts over Nagorno-Karabakh since 1992.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus republics broke out in 1988 when the Armenian majority of the then autonomous region declared its intention of breaking away from Azerbaijan. In a referendum held on December 10, 1991, the population voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence. The move was followed by Azerbaijan’s large-scale military operations against Nagorno-Karabakh and seven neighboring regions. The armed violence left around 25,000-30,000 people dead; thousands were internally displaced. The Ceasefire Accord, which went into effect in May 1994, formally put an end to the armed attacks in the conflict zone. On the 20th anniversary of the peace deal, the co-chairs issued a statement, expressing their concerns over the security in the region and calling for the conflicting parties' stronger efforts in the peace settlement talks.