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The United States remains committed to promoting peace in the South Caucasus, U.S. State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said.

“Promoting peace in the South Caucasus remains an enduring priority for not just this administration, but by Secretary Blinken, in particular, as evidenced by his direct outreach and engagement on these issues directly with leaders in Armenia and Azerbaijan. And this is something that we are going to continue to stay focused on,” he told a press briefing on Friday.

His comments came in response to a question about Russia’s strong criticism of the Washington and Brussels peacemaking efforts in the South Caucasus, which, it claims, seek to derail the implementations of trilateral agreements between the Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders.

“As it relates to Russia, they have taken – the (inaudible) fact is that Russian aggression and unilateralism has undermined a number of lines of efforts, undermined a number of prospects for productive work in the Minsk Group format,” Patel stated.

“And the U.S. remains firmly committed to engagement on any and all avenues for the promotion of peace, whether that be bilaterally, whether that be through mechanisms within the EU, whether that be via the OSCE. And like I said, promoting peace in the South Caucasus remains an enduring priority for us,” the spokesman said.