President Donald Trump is looking forward to Azerbaijan and Armenia to sign a “long-awaited peace treaty,” a senior State Department official said on Friday.
Speaking at an energy conference in Baku, Eric Jacobs, a senior energy adviser at the State Department said the peace treaty would usher in “a new era of security and prosperity” for the South Caucasus region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan said last month that they had agreed on the text of a peace agreement. The Armenian side said that the document is ready for signing and that Yerevan is ready to start consultations with Baku on the date and place of its signing. However, Baku made a number of new demands on Yerevan as a precondition for signing a peace treaty, including reforming the Armenian Constitution and disbanding the OSCE Minsk Group.
The United States has welcomed the announcement by Baku and Yerevan on the agreement on the peace deal, with National Security Advisor Mike Waltz telling Azerbaijan last month to finalize a peace deal with Armenia and release all prisoners, as a way to make the region secure.
In a social media post last month Waltz announced that he had conveyed that message to Azerbaijan’s presidential advisor Hikmet Hajiyev during a conversation.
“Conflict in the South Caucasus must end,” Waltz posted at the time. “I spoke this week with Mr. Hikmet Hajiyev, the national security advisor for President Aliyev in Azerbaijan.”
“We are pleased Azerbaijan and Armenia have taken a big step forward and agreed to a peace treaty. I told him we should finalize this peace deal now, release the prisoners, and work together to make the region more secure and prosperous,” the National Security chief said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also quick to welcome the agreement between Baku and Yerevan.
“This is an opportunity for both countries to turn the page on a decades old conflict in line with President Trump’s vision for a more peaceful world. Now is the time to commit to peace, sign and ratify the treaty, and usher in a new era of prosperity for the people of the South Caucasus,” Rubio said last month soon after the announcement from Baku and Yerevan.
The Armenian National Committee of America, however, has deemed Rubio’s statement premature, saying that there were many obstacles still remaining for enduring peace.
“The ANCA seeks a real peace – a just and enduring peace that respects the rights of the Armenian nation & ensures the return of Armenians to Artsakh – not a fake “peace” – a one-sided surrender of Armenian security and sovereignty forced on Yerevan at the point of a gun,” the ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian said in a statement last month.
