Sullivan phoned Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev after Yerevan warned of “unpredictable consequences” of the military standoff at some sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, Emily Horne, said he told Aliyev and Pashinian that “military movements near un-demarcated borders are irresponsible and provocative.”
“He welcomed the ongoing communication between the two sides and both leaders’ commitment to resolving this issue peacefully,” Horne added in a statement.
Sullivan likewise tweeted that he hailed their “commitment to peaceful resolution of border tensions through dialogue.” He gave no other details of his phone conversations.
The U.S. State Department on Friday urged Baku to immediately “pull back all forces” that reportedly advanced several kilometers into Armenian territory on May 12.
According to the Armenian government’s readout of Pashinian’s call with Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s top adviser “considered unacceptable the movements carried out by Azerbaijani troops inside Armenia’s state borders” and said he will demand their withdrawal.
“Adviser Sullivan praised the restraint shown by the Armenian side in the current situation and its steps aimed at settling issues through diplomatic means,” said the statement.
For its part, Aliyev was reported to criticize Yerevan’s “disproportionate” reaction to the border incidents and “attempts to internationalize the issue.” He also welcomed Sullivan’s calls for Armenia and Azerbaijan to start talks on demarcating their border.
Pashinian said on Monday that the border demarcation and delimitation must be carried out in a “trilateral format” involving Russia. He said this would be in line with Russian-brokered agreements that stopped last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.