The US Department of State believes that a peace pact between Armenia and Azerbaijan is "within reach" after they narrowed the number of issues that remain to be resolved, Spokesperson Matthew Miller said
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th July, 2023) The US Department of State believes that a peace pact between Armenia and Azerbaijan is "within reach" after they narrowed the number of issues that remain to be resolved, Spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Miller was asked Wednesday to clarify what his Department meant by saying that "the peace is within reach," "agreement is within reach" following the June talks between the foreign ministers of the two rival nations in Arlington.
"We have meant when we say it's within reach is that they have made significant progress on a number of issues. Even in the last meeting, they narrowed the number of issues that remain unresolved," he told a news briefing.
"And so we think with a dwindling number of issues to resolve, the agreement's within reach, but that involves � that of course would involve both parties being willing to compromise," Miller added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan this week to express continued US support for the Armenia-Azerbaijan talks and stress the need to keep up the positive momentum toward a durable peace in the South Caucasus.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority region wedged in between the two countries where both have a military presence. The decades-long conflict reignited in fall 2020, marking the worst escalation since the 1990s. Hostilities ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire and deployment of Russian peacekeepers to the region.
