Azerbaijan has pulled out of US-brokered talks with Armenia, accusing a senior US official of “unacceptable” criticism of Baku’s military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov will not participate in talks with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in Washington on Nov. 20 due to “one-sided” comments by Undersecretary of State James O’Brien, the Foreign Ministry said. Exteriors in Baku.
Azerbaijan will also reject visits by senior American officials, and the United States risks losing its role as mediator, the ministry said.
Azerbaijan’s statement also said Washington continues to support Yerevan even though Armenia is “an aggressor and a source of destabilization in the region.”
Speaking at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, O’Brien said there was “no chance” that business with the government in Baku could continue as usual until a peace deal was reached. with Armenia.
The United States canceled “a number of high-level contacts” with Azerbaijan after the Sept. 19-20 lightning attack that led to the exodus of 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, he said.
O’Brien said Washington is monitoring troop movements “very closely” for signs of a possible Azerbaijani invasion of Armenia to create a corridor to its exclave, the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan.
Baku claimed it had no such intentions.
While Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan “seems willing to seize the opportunity for peace, the question is whether (Azerbaijani) President Ilham Aliyev is willing to do so,” O’Brien told a congressional hearing.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stressed the importance of continuing negotiations but suggested they could be held elsewhere.
“We continue to support peaceful negotiations to resolve issues between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” Miller said. “We encourage both sides to participate in these negotiations – here or elsewhere – and that will continue to be our policy.”
Meanwhile, the US Senate unanimously passed the Armenia Defense Act of 2023, which aims to block all US military aid to Azerbaijan.