The U.S., Russia and France had for decades worked together in their capacity as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. That mediation format collapsed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow and Washington have since been separately organizing Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
The Russian Foreign Ministry again charged last month that the Western powers are trying to squeeze Moscow out of the South Caucasus as part of the geopolitical standoff over Ukraine. It said that Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by Moscow during and after the 2020 war in Karabakh will remain “the key factor of stability and security in the region in the foreseeable future.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a quicker implementation of those agreements during separate talks with his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts held last week.
“We are not going to put ourselves against any other offer of mediation, and in fact we’re not a mediator. We are a partner to the two countries,” Ned Price, the U.S. State Department spokesman, told reporters when asked about the Russian peace efforts.
Price said the U.S. is only trying to “help bring about additional progress in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
“We are not doing this as a means by which to compete with Moscow,” he went on. “We are doing this in an effort to bring about the settlement and resolution of a longstanding dispute between these two countries, and unfortunately a dispute that has consistently taken lives, just as it did on March 5.”
Price referred to a shooting incident that left three Karabakh Armenian police officers and two Azerbaijani soldiers dead. According to the authorities in Stepanakert, a vehicle carrying the policemen was ambushed by an Azerbaijani sabotage group that was then repelled by Karabakh troops manning nearby military posts.
Baku has blamed the Armenian side for the incident that occurred nearly three months after the start of the Azerbaijani blockade of Karabakh’s land link with Armenia.
“There can be no military solution to conflict, and the use of force to resolve disputes is never acceptable,” Price said of the shootings. “The only way to sustain peace is at the negotiating table.”
He said that Louis Bono, Washington’s new “senior advisor for Caucasus negotiations,” is conveying this message to Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders during his ongoing visit to the conflict zone.
Bono was due to meet with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Yerevan on Tuesday. He held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Monday.
Aliyev reportedly told the U.S. envoy that he is satisfied with the results of his February 18 meeting in Munich with Pashinian organized and attended by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.