Senior US officials travelling to Armenia as Garabagh's Armenians start to leave

Senior Biden administration officials were to arrive in Armenia on September 25, a U.S. official told Reuters, after ethnic Armenians in Garabagh began a mass exodus on September 24 following Azerbaijan's defeat of the breakaway region's fighters in a conflict dating from the Soviet era.

The visit by U.S. Agency for International Development chief Samantha Power and U.S. State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Yuri Kim would be the first by senior U.S. officials to Armenia since a ceasefire last week.

Power will meet with senior government officials and will "affirm U.S. support for Armenia’s democracy, sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity and commitment to address humanitarian needs stemming from Nagorno-Karabakh," the official said.

Power will be the first USAID Administrator to go to Armenia, the official said, and will affirm the U.S. partnership with the country and "express deep concern for the ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh and to discuss measures to address the humanitarian crisis there."

"The United States is deeply concerned about reports on the humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh and calls for unimpeded access for international humanitarian organizations and commercial traffic," the official said.

The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but previously beyond its control, were forced into a ceasefire last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.