U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke of an “extraordinary opportunity” to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict on Monday just as Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed his precondition for signing a peace treaty with Armenia.
“We have invested intensely … with our own diplomacy in trying to help bring Azerbaijan and Armenia to a peace agreement,” Blinken said, speaking at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank. “We’ve done that in very close collaboration, coordination with the European Union, and I think that that’s something that really is within reach.”
“I was speaking just about a week ago to President Aliyev on this. I think that’s achievable, and it’s manifestly in the interests of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the broader region,” he said.
In a June 20 phone call, Blinken reportedly told Aliyev that a peace treaty discussed by Yerevan and Baku should be signed “without delay.” Aliyev said, for his part, that peace is conditional on Armenia changing its constitution and other laws which he claimed contain territorial claims to Azerbaijan.
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“Until this happens, the peace agreement will not be signed,” the Azerbaijani leader reiterated on Monday.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry rejected Aliyev’s demands earlier in June, accusing him of “torpedoing the peace process.” Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun insisted on the precondition when met with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien in Baku on Friday.
Following his talks with Aliyev and Bayramov, O’Brien announced that the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers have been invited to a NATO summit in Washington scheduled for July 9-11. He did not say whether the U.S. State Department hopes to host fresh peace talks between them on the sidelines of the summit.
In a June 12 interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, O’Brien said the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal is important to Washington because it would not only end the decades-long conflict but also reduce Russian influence in the region and facilitate a new trade route from Central Asia to Turkey passing through Armenia.
Blinken similarly stated at the Brookings Institution that the deal is a “tremendous opportunity for … connecting countries both east, west, north, and south.” “Azerbaijan has a critical role to play in that,” added the top U.S. diplomat.