Azerbaijan and Armenia made progress during peace talks in Washington and voiced hope for an accord despite a flare-up in violence, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday.
The adversaries' foreign ministers met at a State Department office in suburban Washington and also went to the White House to see Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, in the latest U.S.-led mediation.
Closing the three-day negotiations, Blinken said the two sides had made "further progress" on "the objective of reaching an overall final agreement in the weeks and months ahead" on Karabakh.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have gone to war twice over Karabakh, which was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but illegally occupied by Armenia for nearly three decades, as well as several other areas of Azerbaijan.
"I think there's also a clear understanding on everyone's part that the closer you get to reaching an agreement, in some cases the harder it gets because, by definition, the most difficult issues are left for the end," Blinken said.
He saluted the "candor, openness, directness" between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, who traveled to the U.S. capital for the second time in as many months for talks.
The second round of U.S.-brokered peace talks commenced on Tuesday, with Blinken engaging in bilateral and trilateral meetings with Bayramov and Mirzoyan, respectively.
During these meetings, he emphasized the importance of reaching a "durable and dignified agreement."
Shortly after the closing session, foreign ministries of Azerbaijan and Armenia released a joint statement, saying that they "reached an agreement on additional articles and achieved mutual understanding on the draft agreement, meanwhile acknowledging that the positions on some key issues require further work."
"Both ministers expressed their appreciation to the U.S. side for hosting negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and their commitment to continue their negotiations," the statement added.
Bayramov and Mirzoyan last convened for five-day talks in Washington in late May, following which Blinken commended the "tangible progress" achieved.
The European Union has also been mediating at the level of leaders between the former Soviet republics, stepping into diplomacy where Russia has historically been the chief broker.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the two wars over Karabakh, one lasting six years and ending in 1994 and the second in 2020, which ended in a Russia-negotiated cease-fire deal that saw Moscow deploy a peacekeeping contingent along the Lachin corridor, the only road linking Armenia to the enclave.
Tensions have soared over the establishment of a checkpoint on the Lachin corridor in April, which saw another half a dozen people killed from both sides since last December.
Baku said the border checkpoint was created in response to security threats from Armenia, citing the transfer of weapons and ammunition to the Karabakh region.
Yerevan denied the charges and claimed the move violated the cease-fire. Armenia, which relies on Russia as a security guarantor, is also frustrated over what it sees as the Kremlin’s failure to fulfill its peacekeeping role in the territory.
With major regional power Russia struggling to maintain its decisive influence because of the fallout from its war on Ukraine, the conflict has since drawn more Western mediation efforts.