The U.S. State Department hopes to host talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on the sidelines of next week’s NATO summit in Washington. The two ministers have been invited to the summit along with representatives of other NATO “partner states.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that he sees an “extraordinary opportunity” to end the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict soon. In a June 20 phone call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Blinken said he hopes the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty will be finalized “without delay.”
“We welcome and support the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan on establishing peace,” Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Sobhani told reporters. “As for America, we don’t trust America and believe that whenever the Great Satan sets foot to the region it pursues other goals.”
Sobhani claimed that the United States is only interested in turning the South Caucasus into a “a platform for punishing other countries.”
“Given our experience with America’s behavior, we are very pessimistic about their statements,” he said. “We don’t believe that they wish the best for the region’s peoples. They are too far away [from the region] to be affected by its tensions. We think that regional problems must be solved within the region.”
Russia similarly deplored on Tuesday Washington’s invitations extended to Baku and Yerevan. The Russian Foreign Ministry said they are part of U.S. attempts to “spread their destructive influence to all regions of the world” and “tear our friends and neighbors away from cooperation with Russia.”