BAKU: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that Washington was ready to help Azerbaijan and Armenia reach a peace deal on the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region and that the issue was a "high priority".

"We stand ready to help both Azerbaijan and Armenia to achieve and implement a lasting peace settlement. The final steps toward peace are often the most difficult. But we see peace as a possibility... and a prerequisite," she said at a news conference with her Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov, during a visit to the ex-Soviet republic.
"We believe there has been progress. This is a high priority for the US," Clinton said.

She condemned violence on the frontline of Karabakh, where Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian troops are spread along a ceasefire line and shootings are common, including flare-ups last month that left at least four Armenian and two Azerbaijani soldiers dead.

"The US strongly condemns the use of force at the line of contact. I will do everything I can to try and bring the parties together," Clinton said shortly before departing for Armenia.

She also appeared to defend US support for reconciliation efforts between Armenia and Turkey that have angered Azerbaijan, which insists that Turkey should not re-open its closed border with Armenia without concessions on Karabakh.

"It`s in the region`s interest to have more integration, more trade and more economic activity that will enable the entire region to prosper," she said.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had earlier Sunday asked for Washington`s help in finding a solution to the long-standing conflict over Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control from Baku in a war in the early 1990s that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives.

Clinton`s visit to Azerbaijan came during a whirlwind tour of eastern European and Caucasus region countries. After visiting Ukraine, Poland and Azerbaijan, she was due later Sunday in Armenia and on Monday in Georgia.

BDST: 1827 HRS, July 4, 2010