Yerevan /Mediamax/. OSCE Minsk Group U.S. Co-Chair James Warlick is concerned over the atmosphere of mistrust between the Armenian and Azerbaijani societies.

“There is deep mistrust between the sides and I do notice it during my meetings with senior officials in both Yerevan and Baku”, said James Warlick to journalists in Yerevan today.

The American diplomat said that the issue of strengthening of atmosphere of mutual trust should be addressed and only after that will they be able to move on to other issues.

“We hail all the steps and proposals toward the confidence-building between the sides. But the steps we expect to see are not taken, unfortunately. The OSCE has proposed confidence-building mechanisms, such as, for instance, holding of joint investigations for revealing ceasefire violations on the contact line. It’s a very important proposal which should be accepted by the two countries. It’s critical to know how the border incidents start and who is responsible for them. The sides accuse each other but both should respect the ceasefire and understand that the border tension can’t contribute to searching for peaceful solutions”, said James Warlick.

The Co-Chair is convinced that the sides should mutually agree on confidence-building measures and they cannot be one-sided.

“We also attach importance to the role of Track 2 diplomacy in establishing mutual trust between the Armenian and Azerbaijani societies. We encourage contacts between the societies and holding of joint programs. The programs don’t make success overnight but we are sure that they will help reach positive results. I speak about it during my meetings in Azerbaijan as well”, said the American Co-Chair.