“I commend the positive momentum resulting from bilateral talks and urge further progress towards peace and stability in the region,” Blinken said in a tweet on his conversation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
He also wrote: “Good discussion with [Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinian on Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s historic opportunity to achieve peace in the region. I commend Armenia on its positive steps forward with Azerbaijan [and] Turkey.”
According to the official Armenian readout of the call, Pashinian “reaffirmed his commitment to the peace agenda,” while Blinken expressed Washington’s readiness to assist in the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the opening of Armenian-Azerbaijani transport links and the release of Armenian prisoners of war remaining in Azerbaijan.
Blinken was quick to welcome unmediated talks held by the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Tbilisi on July 16. The ministers reported no concrete agreements after the talks. They both spoke with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried by phone on July 17.
In what may have been a related development, CIA Director William Burns made a surprise visit to Yerevan on July 15. Pashinian’s press office said he discussed with Burns “processes taking place in the South Caucasus.” Washington has not commented on the purpose of the visit.
Earlier in July, Pashinian phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the implementation of Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by Moscow. The Kremlin said they focused on “ensuring security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border” and “restoring economic, transport and logistics ties in the South Caucasus.”
The United States, Russia and France have for decades jointly tried to broker an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord in their capacity as the co-chairs of the Minsk Group. Moscow says Washington and Paris stopped working with it in that format following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Visiting Yerevan last month, Donfried insisted that the Minsk Group remains a “very important format” for Washington. The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed Donfried’s assurances.