(Azatutyun.am) — A senior US State Department official has discussed with Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders their efforts to negotiate an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal during his visits to Yerevan and Baku.
Joshua Huck, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Southern Europe and the Caucasus, met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday, September 20. Pashinyan’s press office said they reviewed US-Armenian relations and “discussions on the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan.” The Armenian government’s position on opening transport links with Azerbaijan was also on the agenda, the office said in a statement.
Huck was accompanied by Louis Bono, a US special envoy for Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks. They met with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Thursday.
According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s readout of the meeting, Mirzoyan “stressed the importance” of Yerevan’s proposal to sign an interim peace deal with Baku that would leave out their remaining disagreements. He also mentioned “artificial obstacles” to such an arrangement repeatedly rejected by the Azerbaijani side.
Baku also makes the signing of a peace deal conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution which it says contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan. Meeting with Huck and Bono on Wednesday, September 18, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov again said that the constitution is “the most serious obstacle” to peace between the two South Caucasus neighbors. Bayramov also reportedly complained about Armenia’s “militarization policy.”
According to the US Embassy in Baku, Huck discussed with Bayramov and other senior Azerbaijani officials the “importance of achieving a durable and dignified peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia and recent progress made toward this goal.”
