Armradio.am. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says important progress was made at Armenian-Azerbaijani talks.
Closing the talks, Blinken said the two sides had made “further progress” on “the objective of reaching an overall final agreement in the weeks and months ahead” on Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region under effective Armenian control.
“I think there’s also a clear understanding on everyone’s part that the closer you get to reaching an agreement, in some cases the harder it gets because by definition, the most difficult issues are left for the end,” Blinken said.
Blinken saluted the “candor, openness, directness” between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, who traveled to the US capital for the second time in as many months for talks.
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Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov held bilateral negotiations on June 27-29 at the George Schultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia. While in Washington they met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
The Ministers and their teams continued progress on the draft bilateral “Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations”. They reached an agreement on additional articles and advanced mutual understanding of the draft agreement, meanwhile acknowledging that the positions on some key issues require further work.
Both Ministers expressed their appreciation to the US side for hosting negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and their commitment to continue their negotiations.