US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement that during his call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday, Blinken expressed “the deep concern of the United States that the establishment by the of a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor would jeopardize efforts to build confidence in the peace process.”
The Lachin Corridor is the only land link between Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and Azerbaijan established the checkpoint late last week, in a move Armenia has seen as a violation of the recent ceasefire between the two parties.
The statement adds that Blinken “stressed the importance of reopening Lachin Pass to commercial and private vehicles as soon as possible.”
Miller added that Blinken conveyed to Aliyev Washington’s support for the Azerbaijani-Armenian peace process, and “shared his belief that peace is possible.”
Miller said in a separate statement on Saturday that the previous day Blinken had also had a conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The US Secretary of State also spoke of “the importance of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks” and promised that the United States would “continue to support them”, according to Miller.
Blinken stressed that direct dialogue and diplomacy are the only path to a lasting solution.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus, entered two wars, the first in the early 1990s and the second in 2020, in a bid to control the disputed mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Moscow brokered a ceasefire between Yerevan and Baku after the last round of fighting between them in 2020 and deployed peacekeeping forces along the Lachin Corridor.
While Russia is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and does not want to strain its relations with Turkey, the main ally of Azerbaijan, the United States and the European Union seek to warm relations between the two sworn enemies.
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