Speaking on Armenian Public Television on 21 January, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones telephoned him earlier that day to apologize for the furore caused by her comments on 13 January at a press conference with Russian journalists. Jones was quoted as branding the authorities of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, along with the leadership of Transdniester, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, as \"criminal secessionist Regimes.\" According to Oskanian, Jones explained that she \"did not and could not\" mean to include the Karabakh leadership in the category of \"criminal regimes.\" Also on 21 January, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans told Arminfo that Jones made two separate points: first, that the United States and Russia should cooperate more closely to resolve the conflict in Abkhazia, and second, that there are \"extremist criminal elements\" in unspecified territories bordering on Russia. Evans also said that two international principles of conflict resolution collide in the Karabakh peace process, that of territorial integrity and the right to national self-determination. Evans said that contradiction does not , however, make a settlement of the conflict impossible given flexibility and readiness for compromise. (Arminfo)