Josh Huck, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Southern Europe and the Caucasus, said he had a “great meeting” with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan that focused on “the growing U.S.-Armenia partnership and progress on peace.”
“A strong relationship with Armenia creates greater prosperity for all our citizens,” he added in a short statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan.
According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s readout of the talks, the two men discussed joint actions “aimed at ensuring concrete results and strengthening the resilience of Armenia.” It did not give any details.
Regional security was also high on the agenda, with Mirzoyan speaking of a “real opportunity to establish peace in the region” through an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty essentially finalized in March. Mirzoyan and Huck “exchanged views on ongoing efforts to implement the peace agenda,” the ministry said without elaborating.
Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, also stressed the importance of signing the treaty during his separate meeting with Huck.
Baku makes its signing conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution. It has also set a number of other conditions for peace, including a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through a key Armenian region. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev renewed in January his threats to open such a corridor by force.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that there is a “real risk” of an Azerbaijani invasion of Armenia.
“We would like to prevent that from happening,” Rubio told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Wednesday again ruled out the possibility of a fresh military conflict with Azerbaijan. “There will be no war, there will be peace,” he said in a speech.