Blinken speaks to Azeri, Armenian leaders about peace talks

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken to the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan and reaffirmed Washington’s support for a peace treaty between the South Caucasus neighbors, the State Department said on Sunday.
Yerevan suffered a major defeat last September when Baku’s forces retook the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which while part of Azerbaijan had a predominantly Armenian population.
Peace talks have become bogged down in issues including demarcation of the two countries’ 1,000-km (620-mile) border, which remains closed and heavily militarized.
Blinken spoke to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday and urged him “to keep up the momentum with his Armenian counterpart, reiterating U.S. willingness to support those efforts,” the State Department said in a statement.
Aliyev’s press service said on Sunday that foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia will soon hold a meeting in Almaty in Kazakhstan to continue negotiations.