Antony Blinken
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken encouraged Azerbaijan and Armenia to maintain momentum toward a peace settlement on Sunday, following protests in Armenia over perceived concessions.
According to the State Department, Blinken, who was going to the Middle East, spoke by phone with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
In a statement, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, stated, “In the call with Pashinyan, Blinken affirmed US support for progress between Armenia and Azerbaijan on a durable and dignified peace agreement”.
Blinken had conducted numerous talks between the two nations in hopes of preventing additional bloodshed, but in September, Azerbaijan launched a quick offensive to seize the breakaway flashpoint region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
However, the Caucasus countries have resumed talks and have begun physical demarcation of a disputed border section over the last week.
Pashinyan has agreed to restore four abandoned villages that Yerevan seized in the 1990s, claiming that he is acting to prevent war rather than ceding sovereignty but this has sparked protests in Armenia.
Blinken told Pashinyan that the US was prepared to help Armenia’s ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’, which has historically been close to Russia but was outraged by Moscow’s failure to halt the Azerbaijani attack last year.
