Blinken spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev the day before their talks in Brussels hosted by European Council President Charles Michel.
“The Secretary underscored that now was not the time for further escalation in the region,” the U.S. State Department spokesman, Ned Price, said in written comments on the call with Pashinian.
“The Secretary expressed his encouragement for further peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, including Pashinian’s and Aliyev’s planned meeting April 6 with European Council President Michel,” he said.
“The Secretary called for restraint, de-escalation, and renewed diplomacy,” Price said in a separate statement on his conversation with Aliyev.
The trilateral meeting in Brussels was scheduled a week after Azerbaijani troops seized a village in eastern Karabakh and tried to push deeper into the territory, sparking deadly fighting with Karabakh Armenian forces.
The U.S. State Department deplored the Azerbaijani troop movements, calling them “irresponsible and unnecessarily provocative.” Baku rejected the criticism.
Aliyev and Pashinian decided last week to meet in Brussels as Azerbaijan pressed Armenia to accept its proposals on a “peace treaty” between the two nations. Aliyev was reported to discuss those proposals with Blinken.
According to Price, Blinken told both leaders that the United States is ready to help Yerevan and Baku reach a “long-term comprehensive” peace accord by “engaging bilaterally and with like-minded partners, including through our role as an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair.”
It was not clear whether Washington will continue to work with Russia, another co-chair of the Minsk Group, in seeking an end to the Karabakh conflict.
Price cited Blinken as condemning Moscow’s “heinous war crimes in Ukraine” and reaffirming Washington’s commitment to “hold the Russian Federation and its enablers accountable for the unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine.”