WASHINGTON, DC \u2014 The United States has been discouraging Azerbaijan from escalating tensions in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been very actively and directly engaged with leadership in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, trying to help advance prospects for a long-term political settlement in regard to Nagorno-Karabakh,\u201d Blinken told the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate during a hearing held on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d he said without elaborating.<\/p>\n
Blinken pointed to his recent phone calls with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as well as the foreign ministers of the two South Caucasus states.<\/p>\n
During his conversations with Aliyev and Pashinyan, he called for \u201crestraint, de-escalation, and renewed diplomacy,\u201d according to the U.S. State Department.<\/p>\n
Blinken phoned the two leaders on April 5 more than a week after Azerbaijani troops seized a village in eastern Karabakh and tried to push deeper into the territory, sparking deadly fighting with Karabakh Armenian forces.<\/p>\n
The State Department deplored the Azerbaijani troop movements, calling them \u201cirresponsible and unnecessarily provocative.\u201d Baku rejected the criticism.<\/p>\n
Speaking during Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Senator Robert Menendez, .chairman of the Senate committee, accused Baku of trying to \u201celiminate the presence of Armenians\u201d living in Karabakh. Menendez also criticized the U.S. government for continuing to seek greater U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan than Armenia.<\/p>\n
Referencing the Government Accounting Office\u2019s (GAO) report publicly released last month, Chairman Menendez highlighted that the Department of State and Department of Defense failed to comply with reporting requirements for reviewing U.S. assistance to the Government of Azerbaijan in terms of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act.<\/p>\n
In response, Secretary Blinken stated he was \u201chappy to go back and take a look at the specifics of the concerns [Chairman Menendez] has raised about the inadequacy of the reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSection 907 is an annual decision and we have interagency review and that review is underway, but I take what you [Chairman Menendez] say seriously,\u201d said Secretary Blinken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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