Azerbaijan expressed concern on Wednesday at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s upcoming trilateral meeting with top U.S. and European Union officials, saying that it is further proof of the West’s pro-Armenian stance.
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, announced last week that Pashinyan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet in Brussels on April 5. He said they will discuss ways of stepping up “trilateral cooperation” and strengthening Armenia’s “resilience.”
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that the planned talks are “not transparent,” involve only one regional state and undermine confidence-building measures in the South Caucasus.
“Instead of pushing the Armenian side to peaceful negotiations, it creates new dividing lines in the region,” read a ministry statement, adding that the United States and the EU would bear responsibility for Yerevan’s “destabilizing actions.”
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In separate comments, the ministry spokesman, Aykhan Hajizade, said that Azerbaijan has “never received such unconditional support from the EU and the U.S.” throughout the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. He claimed that Pashinyan will discuss with Blinken and von der Leyen Western military assistance to Armenia.
The Brussels meeting has not yet been officially confirmed by the U.S. or the EU. The U.S. State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, declined to comment on it during a news briefing in Washington on Tuesday.
“I’m not going to speak to it in detail other than to say that our objectives in every engagement with the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan are to encourage them to work to bridge the differences … and reach a durable and lasting peace agreement,” Miller said.
The Western powers warned Azerbaijan against invading Armenia following its recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh last September. They now also seem anxious to show support for Pashinyan’s government amid its deepening rift with Russia, Armenia’s longtime ally.
In recent weeks, Pashinyan has threatened to pull Armenia out of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and not ruled out a bid to join the EU. Russian officials have accused the West of encouraging Yerevan to drift away from Moscow.
