The United States is urging Armenia and Azerbaijan to make “tough compromises” to negotiate a bilateral peace accord, the U.S. State Department announced late on Monday. This has sparked claims from Armenian opposition that Washington is supporting further Armenian concessions demanded by Baku.
“We believe a deal is possible, but it requires both sides to make some difficult choices and tough compromises. We will continue to push them to resolve those final differences and reach an agreement,” said department spokesman Matthew Miller at a news briefing in Washington. He did not provide further details.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Armenian government had not responded to the statement. Representatives from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party also declined to comment.
Armenian opposition lawmakers argue that the U.S. is primarily pressuring Armenia to make additional concessions to Azerbaijan.
“What more do we have to concede that we haven’t already?” said Artur Khachatrian of the Hayastan alliance. “President Erdogan mentioned the so-called Zangezur corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave just the day before Miller’s statement.”
Tigran Abrahamian, a senior lawmaker from another opposition bloc, Pativ Unem, also suggested that Washington is pushing Yerevan to give ground on the issue of the corridor passing through a strategic Armenian region. He dismissed U.S. statements supporting Armenian sovereignty over this and other transit routes.
“The United States also claimed to support Armenia’s territorial integrity. But in 2021 and 2022, Azerbaijan seized territory whose Armenian sovereignty is beyond doubt,” said Abrahamian.
Both opposition groups have strongly criticized Pashinyan’s previous concessions to Azerbaijan, including the recent handover of several disputed border areas, which triggered mass antigovernment protests in Yerevan. They believe his appeasement policy will only encourage Baku to demand more concessions.
Miller’s comments came less than a week after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted talks in Washington between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers. Blinken urged both sides to take “further steps to finalize a deal as soon as possible,” according to the U.S. State Department. However, no breakthrough was reported.
“We have made progress,” Miller said. “I’m not going to speak to it in detail. But we don’t have an agreement yet, and we’re not going to rest until we reach one.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov reiterated before the Washington talks that the signing of the peace treaty is contingent on Armenia changing its constitution, which they claim contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.
