Secretary Hillary Clinton Visits Azerbaijan (Photos)

Photo via http://news.az

(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began a trip to the South Caucasus region on Monday calling on arch rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan to renounce violence that she warned could slip into a broader regional conflict. "I [...] have called on all parties, all actors, to refrain from the use or threat of force," said Clinton speaking to journalists. "There is a danger that it could escalate into a much broader conflict that would be very tragic for everyone concerned."

War between ethnic Azeris and Armenians erupted in 1991 over the mostly Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region which broke away from Muslim Azerbaijan with the backing of Christian Armenia as the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago.Sporadic violence still flares along a ceasefire line negotiated in 1994. Some 30,000 people were killed and about 1 million became refugees, the majority in Azerbaijan.

Clinton's South Caucasus trip will focus largely on U.S. interests and security in the region criss-crossed by energy pipelines, fraught with territorial disputes and the site of a five-day war between Russia and pro-western Georgia in 2008.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/04/us-armenia-clinton-idUSBRE8530VF20120604