Washington:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday encouraged Azerbaijan and Armenia to maintain momentum toward a peace settlement following protests in Armenia over alleged concessions.
Blinken, who flew to the Middle East, spoke by phone with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the State Department said.
In the call with Pashinyan, Blinken reaffirmed “U.S. support for progress between Armenia and Azerbaijan on a lasting and dignified peace agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement ahead of a refueling stop in Ireland.
Blinken had repeatedly held talks between the rival nations in the hope of preventing further conflict, but Azerbaijan captured the breakaway flashpoint region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive in September.
But Caucasus countries have since resumed diplomacy and this past week began the physical demarcation of a disputed stretch of border.
Pashinyan has agreed to return four abandoned villages that Yerevan seized in the 1990s. He says he is committed to preventing war and not sacrificing sovereignty, but provoking protests in Armenia.
Blinken told Pashinyan that the United States was ready to support the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Armenia, which has historically been close to Russia but angered by Moscow's inability to stop the Azerbaijani offensive last year.
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