Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed Tuesday that the United States is pushing back on “any unilateral actions, particularly by Azerbaijan” that would inflame the situation in the South Caucasus.
Blinken, who was speaking at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the remarks in response to an inquiry by committee chairman Senator Robert Menendez, who questioned the Secretary of State about the State Department’s failure to comply with reporting requirements on U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan as it related to the restrictions spelled out in Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act.
Menendez referenced the Government Accounting Office’s report released last month, and highlighted the failures by the departments of State and Defense to comply with the requirements.
Saying he took Menendez’s concerns “seriously,” Blinken then discussed the current situation in Artsakh, reiterating U.S. support for “a long-term political settlement with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh.”
“I have been very actively in directly engaged with leadership in both Armenia and Azerbaijan including just as recently as a week ago phone calls with Prime Minister [Nikol] Pashinyan and with President [Ilham] Aliyev, as well as their foreign ministers, trying to help advance prospects for a long-term political settlement with regard to Nagorno Karabakh,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“We have been developing and promoting various confidence-building measures. We have been trying to push back on any unilateral actions particularly by Azerbaijan that would only inflame the situation and we have a number of programs in place that are part of the budget to try to help advance more peaceful prospects,” added Blinken.
The Secretary of State did not comment further on how the so-called “push back” was being carried out.
