Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Erika Olson met with other senior Armenian officials in Yerevan on Monday. The U.S. Embassy in Armenia said at the start of her trip that she will discuss “U.S. support for an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement and U.S.-Armenian bilateral ties.”
In a statement, Pashinian’s press office said the normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations was on the agenda of his meeting with Olson. It said they also touched upon Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade of Karabakh’s land link with Armenia and “the creation of an international mechanism for dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert.”
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov accused Yerevan on Monday of hampering Baku’s efforts to “reintegrate” the Karabakh Armenians into Azerbaijan in a phone call with another U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, Dereck Hogan. According to Azerbaijani news agencies, Hogan stressed the importance of “successfully completing the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization process.”
Earlier on Monday, Bayramov met with Louis Bono, a U.S. special envoy for Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. Bono visited Armenia last week.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mediated talks between Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on February 18 on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Blinken had separate phone conversations with the two leaders late last month.