Blinken says Armenia and Azerbaijan may sign peace deal soon

Armenia and Azerbaijan may reach a peace agreement soon, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.

“I’ve been very engaged on seeing what we can do to help Armenia and Azerbaijan come to a peace agreement that normalizes the relationship between them, as well as deal with obviously the rights and protections for the Armenian ethnics in Nagorno Karabakh, dealing with border delimitation, etcetera. And I think there’s an opportunity, I don’t want to exaggerate it, but an opportunity actually to bring a peace agreement to fruition," Blinken said in response to a question from Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez.

"I had Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev together in Munich at the Security Conference, I had the Foreign Ministers here in Washington, I expect that they’ll come back, we worked on a text and this is not something that we are imposing on Armenia, we are answering the strong desire expressed by Armenia to see if we can help them reach an agreement which would end, at least in many ways, thirty plus years of conflict,” he added.

The U.S. top diplomat claimed he was “pressing” on Azerbaijan to re-open the Lachin Corridor.

“I am pressing on Azerbaijan, including as recently as this week, to re-open that corridor. We are working on that,” he said.

“I do think there is without exaggeration a moment of opportunity that would profoundly be in the interests of the people of Armenia, as well as Azerbaijan,” Blinken stated.