The United States has announced the appointment of Andrew Schofer as U.S. co-chair of a negotiating group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years. Armenia-backed separatists seized control of the mainly ethnic-Armenian-populated region during the early 1990s in a war that killed some 30,000 people.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict during the last 25 years have brought little progress.
"The United States remains firmly committed to the Minsk Group process and helping the sides reach a lasting and peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," U.S. State Department Heather Nauert said in announcing Schofer's appointment on August 28.
"The United States supports a just settlement that must be based on international law" and embrace "the principles of nonuse of force, territorial integrity, and self-determination," she said.
Schofer recently served as a charge d'affaires at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna and has worked at the U.S. embassies in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Moscow.