U.S. State Department
Karen Donfried, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, held telephone conversations with Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs said on Twitter.
“The US is deeply concerned about gas disruptions and Azerbaijan’s troop movements. Armenia and Azerbaijan need to use direct communications channels to immediately de-escalate,” said the statement.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan briefed Donfried about the current situation in Artsakh, telling the American official that Azerbaijan “grossly violated the commitments assumed by the tai-lateral statements, endangering the regional peace and stability. He also presented Azerbaijani actions on targeting the civilian population, using psychological pressures and deliberately obstructing the normal operation of vital infrastructures aimed at creating a humanitarian crisis in Nagorno Karabakh.”
According to the foreign ministry, Mirzoyan told Donfried that these actions are “one of the vivid demonstrations of Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleaning and anti-Armenian policy. In this sense the minister stressed the need for the addressed and clear response by the international community, including the United States.”
Mirzoyan on Friday met with Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, the ministry said in a news release.
During the meeting Mirzoyan touched on the March 24 Azerbaijani incursion into the village of Parukh, which is in the responsibility zone of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno Karabakh.
Azerbaijan’s efforts to deliberately obstruct the normal operation of vital infrastructure and other steps directed to ethnic cleansing. The necessity of the return of Azerbaijani units back to their initial positions was emphasized.
Mirzoyan also presented Armenia’s position on the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan around a peace agreement, highlighting the mediating role of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship in this context.