Blinken Offers Pashinyan US Assistance In Armenia-Azerbaijan Discussions - State Dept.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan Washington's help in peace discussions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Monday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th March, 2023) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan Washington's help in peace discussions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Monday.

"Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today to offer continued U.S. assistance in facilitating bilateral peace discussions with Azerbaijan," Patel said in a statement.

Blinken encouraged concrete steps forward in finding solutions to outstanding issues.� He reiterated US support for direct talks and diplomacy to support a lasting and sustainable peace, Patel added.

Blinken also pointed out that there is no military solution to the conflict, according to the statement.

The decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh on the border between the two countries flared up again in September 2020, marking the worst escalation since the 1990s.

Hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered trilateral declaration of ceasefire signed in November 2020. The two former Soviet countries agreed to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the region. Occasional clashes have since occurred on the border.

Since December 2022, the Lachin Corridor � a road which runs through Azerbaijani territory and serves as the only link between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh � has been blocked by a group of people from Azerbaijan described by Baku as environmental activists protesting alleged illegal Armenian mining in the area.

On February 18, 2023, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan held peace talks in Munich. Following the negotiations, Aliyev said that the main issue was that the peace treaty between the two countries should be drawn up on the basis of international norms and principles, and that any provisions on Nagorno-Karabakh were unacceptable.