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The U.S. seeks resumption of constructive dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan, State Department spokesman Ned Price told a press briefing on Wednesday 18 January.

His comments came after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s telephone conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan earlier on Wednesday. The two discussed the difficult humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of Azerbaijan's blockade of the Lachin corridor.

"The interlocutors exchanged views on the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, protection of the rights and security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, unblocking of regional infrastructures, as well as normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations," the Armenian government said in its readout of the call.

“The Secretary did have an opportunity today to speak to the leader of Armenia. I do expect that he will have an opportunity in the coming days to speak to President Aliyev,” Price said.

Asked whether Blinken was trying to “test the waters” with the side to see if there’s any desire for next round of dialogue, the spokesman said: “We’re going to do what is ultimately most helpful. And at the end of last year, there were a couple meetings that the Secretary chaired between his counterparts, a trilateral meeting between Armenia, Azerbaijan, with Secretary Blinken in the middle. We did that at Blair House. We did that in New York. Of course, we’ve seen setbacks when it comes to Nagorno-Karabakh of late. We want to see constructive dialogue put back on track. We stand ready to engage bilaterally. We stand ready to engage with and through partners, through the OSCE or, if and when appropriate, trilaterally, as we have done in the past.”