YEREVAN. – There cannot be a comprehensive settlement without including status for Nagorno-Karabakh, Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk group James Warlick said in Yerevan.

“A part of a comprehensive settlement includes status, and there will need to be a free expression of the will of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, as a part of comprehensive settlement,” he said during a press conference on Monday.

The diplomat also referred to his recent interview with Russia's Vedomosti newspaper.

“If you read my Vedomosti article carefully, you will see that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and that is what we mean by a comprehensive settlement. And one element of that settlement will need to be the return of the territories surrounding Karabakh. That is a point and element for negotiation,” he added.

In his recent interview with Russia's Vedomosti newspaper, James Warlick spoke about deployment of peacekeeping forces as an element of the settlement of Karabakh conflict and added that “the occupied territories must be returned to Azerbaijani control in the framework of package settlement.”