(Washington) Armenia and Azerbaijan are “close” to a peace deal, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday as he met with his counterparts from both countries in Washington.
“Based on all the engagements that we’ve had, including over the last few weeks, I think the two countries are very close to reaching a final agreement, which the United States would strongly support,” Blinken said at the start of the meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov.
The trilateral meeting is taking place on the sidelines of a NATO summit in the US capital.
The US Secretary of State said the two countries were working toward an agreement that was “durable, dignified and could open up extraordinary prospects for both countries, for the region they share and for their relations with the United States.”
He said he wanted to see “what more the United States can do to help you reach an agreement.”
After three decades of conflict, talks toward a comprehensive peace deal between the two Caucasian neighbors have made progress since Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh in a September 2023 offensive, driving out more than 100,000 Armenians who had largely populated the territory that had been disputed for decades.
An agreement on the delimitation of the border between the two countries was reached in April, which resulted in the transfer to Azerbaijan of four border villages in the Tavush region.
A series of protests followed in the affected Armenian region and also in Yerevan. The participants demanded, so far in vain, the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The latter also indicated last week that Armenia “needed a new Constitution” because the fundamental law “does not reflect the vision of citizens on relations between the two countries.”
The current constitution, which dates back to the collapse of the USSR and the independence of both Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1991, cites reunification with Nagorno-Karabakh as its goal.
Mr Pashinyan’s remarks appeared to indicate that he was ready to respond to a request from Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who said a peace deal could not be reached until Armenia withdrew its territorial claims from its constitution.
Last week, Mr Aliyev estimated that a peace deal could be finalised within months.