U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan last Friday to calm the boiling tension in the region over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Associated Press reported the U.S.’s top diplomat met with the foreign ministers of the neighboring countries in Washington, D.C. He aimed to get the leaders to agree to a cease-fire agreement. The bloody clashes have resulted in about 5,000 deaths between both sides, including civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Russian intelligence. The fighting, as we have been reporting in the Trends Journal, began on 27 September.
The AP reported Turkey has supported Azerbaijan in the conflict, which has given the country a military advantage.
Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, the Armenian foreign minister, said he had “very productive” meetings with Pompeo last Friday, according to Reuters.
“We have been assessing the way in which we can immediately, without delay, achieve the establishment of a ceasefire and go back to the peaceful resolution. I think what we’ve been hearing from the United States was very encouraging,” he said.
The Reuters report pointed out that world powers like the U.S. and France want the isolated regional conflict to avoid spilling over into a confrontation that pulls in Turkey and Russia. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has promised his support to Azerbaijan, and Russia has a defense pact with Armenia, Reuters reported.
“Turkey is a valued ally, but I also expect Turkey to use its considerable influence in the region to calm tensions,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said, according to the Moscow Times.
According to Anti-War.com, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said the ceasefire broke down within hours. “It’s clear that, once again it wasn’t possible to maintain the ceasefire,” Pashinyan wrote on Facebook on Monday. “We don’t yet know how the US president will react to the failure.”
