U.S. President Barack Obama pressed his Armenian and Azerbaijan counterparts to agree on the basic principles of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in separate phone calls made ahead of their crucial meeting in Kazan, Russia on Friday. “President Obama strongly encouraged the two leaders to finalize and endorse the Basic Principles during their meeting with President [Dmitry] Medvedev in Kazan,” the White House said in a statement issued late on Thursday. “Once the Basic Principles are agreed to, the parties can begin negotiating a final settlement based on the Helsinki principles of non-use of force or threat of force, territorial integrity, and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” “President Obama told both leaders that now is the time to resolve this conflict and to offer the people of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh a better future for themselves and for their children,” added the statement. President Serzh Sarkisian was quoted by his office as assuring Obama that the Armenian side is committed to finding a “just and peaceful” solution to the Karabakh dispute. He also said that the Kazan meeting will be a success if Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev “displays a constructive approach.” Sarkisian made a similar statement on the summit at the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) on Wednesday. Also calling for a breakthrough at Kazan was French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In a written message to Sarkisian reported by the Armenian presidential press service on Friday, Sarkozy urged the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents to show their peoples “the path of courage, wisdom and peace.” It was not clear if Sarkozy appealed to Aliyev as well. US, Armenian Presidents had a phone talk United States President Barack Obama has initiated a phone call with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan to discuss an upcoming crucial summit on the future on Nagorno-Karabakh. According to a brief statement published on the Armenian president’s official website, during the phone conversation that took place on the eve of the talks in Kazan, Russia, Obama pointed out the importance of the trilateral meeting of the presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan in the context of the Deauville statement and expressed his gratitude to Sargsyan for his “leadership” in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Sargsyan, meanwhile, reportedly thanked Obama for his “consistent assistance” to the Minsk Group conflict settlement process and said that “the peoples of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have always sought a peaceful and just settlement of the conflict and if in Kazan the Azerbaijani side shows a constructive approach, then positive results can be expected.” The White House also confirmed that the same day Obama had a phone conversation with Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev. Meanwhile, Russia, which essentially spearheads the latest efforts of the mediating troika that also includes the United States and France, has also renewed its calls for the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to make a breakthrough in their protracted talks. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on Thursday, on the eve of the summit of the presidents Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia in Russian Tatarstan’s capital of Kazan, voicing expectations of progress at the talks. “The document that will be considered in Kazan is the result of an important period of joint work done by the parties and the co-chair countries and represents a real basis for further progress and the subsequent preparation of a comprehensive peace accord,” it said. In a message addressed to President Sargsyan, French President Nicolas Sarkozy also called for progress at the Kazan talks. According to the Armenian president's press office, the French leader, in particular, said that "time has come to fix those principles on the basis of which negotiations around settlement proper will be conducted."

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