No agreement yet on Armenia-Azerbaijan meeting in Washington – Foreign Ministry
The Armenian Foreign Ministry denied on Thursday an official’s claim that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has agreed to meet with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in Washington next month, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reported.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been scheduled to host the talks on November 20. However, Baku cancelled them in protest against what it called pro-Armenian statements made by James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia.
O’Brien met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Bayramov in Baku last week. He said he told them that Blinken “looks forward to hosting foreign ministers Bayramov and Mirzoyan in Washington soon.”
“Azerbaijan has accepted the U.S. offer to hold a meeting of the foreign ministers there in January,” Edmon Marukian, an Armenian ambassador-at-large, told state television late on Wednesday. He said he hopes that Mirzoyan and Bayramov will finalize an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry effectively refuted Marukian’s announcement. “If there is an agreement to meet, we make it public,” a ministry spokeswoman told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Baku insisted, meanwhile, that the two sides have still not agreed on a date and venue of the next meeting between their foreign ministers.