US State Department: Peace between Azerbaijan, Armenia possible

US State Department Deputy Spokesman Vedant Patel has said that peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia is possible.

He made the remarks on May 3 while answering journalists' questions regarding the normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Caliber.Az reports with reference to the website of the US State Department.

Patel was asked to provide information on the third day of the Washington meeting between Secretary of State Blinken and the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“You keep on trying to ask me the same question every day, so I got to give you credit for your endurance, I suppose. But I’m just not going to get ahead of these talks or these processes. What I will note is that – and this is not something you’re disfamiliar with, because it’s something that the Secretary has been deeply engaged on – is that we believe that peace between these two countries is possible.

We believe that there is not a military solution to this; we believe that direct dialogue through diplomacy is an integral path forward. And that’s why we’re very pleased to host these two foreign ministers at the Foreign Service Institute to participate and take on these very important discussions. As I said, the Secretary and others across the department have been deeply engaged on this, and we’ll look forward to watching the process closely,” the spokesman said.

The next question was about Turkey's recent statement about the closure of airspace for aircraft of Armenian airlines. Patel was asked to comment on this statement.

“The US strongly supports Armenia-Türkiye normalization, which we believe would be important for not just these two countries but helpful for stability across the region. We note with disappointment Türkiye’s announcement that it would suspend Armenian airline overflight permissions. An agreement that had previously been reached between these two countries to resume air connections had been a very important confidence-building measure – not just between these two countries, but, again, for regional stability broadly. And it’s our sincere hope that Türkiye and Armenia can continue to rebuild economic ties and open transportation links as well,” Patel said.