Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi arrived in Armenia on Saturday, a visit announced the day before as the country has just been faced with violent clashes on its border with Azerbaijan.
Ms. Pelosi, who is the highest-ranking US official to visit Yerevan since the small Caucasian country gained independence in 1991, called her visit “a powerful symbol of the United States’ firm commitment to a peaceful Armenia, prosperous and democratic, and a stable and secure Caucasus region,” in a statement.
This three-day visit “will play a big role in guaranteeing our security,” the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Alen Simonyan, told reporters before his arrival.
The visit of the American official comes at a time when the region, which is strategic in particular for the transport of hydrocarbons from the Caspian Sea, is plagued by friction between the influence of Turkey, which supports Azerbaijan, and that of Russia. , theoretically guarantor of the security of Armenia where it has a military base, but which is very busy in Ukraine.
The West is present in the peace process within the framework of the Minsk group of the OSCE.
More than 200 people have died in recent fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, with both sides blaming each other. These clashes erupted on Tuesday and ended in international mediation on Thursday night.
It is an escalation not seen since 2020 threatening to torpedo a fragile peace process between the two rival Caucasian countries, which fought two wars – in 2020 and in the 1990s – for the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, enclave populated by Armenians in Azerbaijan.
Nancy Pelosi had been at the center of geopolitical tensions between China and the United States in August, when she traveled to Taiwan in defiance of warnings from Beijing which claims the island.