The United States is pledging support for peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia and renewing its calls for an immediate reopening of the Lachin corridor to commercial and private vehicles.

Early Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds separate meetings with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Arlington, Virginia.

Blinken then meets with both Mirzoyan and Bayramov for bilateral peace negotiations at the diplomatic facility near the State Department.

In recent months, tensions between the two neighboring, former Soviet republics have increased over Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin corridor, which is the only land route giving Armenia direct access to the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The State Department had voiced “deep concern” that Azerbaijan’s establishment of a checkpoint on the Lachin corridor undermines efforts for peace talks.

Monday’s meetings come after Blinken’s call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday, when the top U.S. diplomat reiterated Washington’s call to reopen the land route.

A spokesperson from Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Mirzoyan’s working visit to the United States is to discuss “the agreement on normalization of relations” with Azerbaijan.

The two countries have had a decades-long conflict involving the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is inside Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians.

The Lachin Corridor allows supplies from Armenia to reach the 120,000 ethnic Armenians in the mountainous enclave and has been policed by Russian peacekeepers since December of 2020.

The situation has left those ethnic Armenian residents in Nagorno-Karabakh without access to essential goods and services, including life-saving medication and health care, according to Amnesty International. The rights group said Azerbaijan’s government has failed its human rights obligations by taking no action to lift the blockade.

Azerbaijan maintains the land route is open for humanitarian delivery, emergency services, and peacekeepers.

Some material in this report came from Reuters.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-hosts-peace-talks-with-armenia-azerbaijan-/7073539.html