Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s office confirmed on Wednesday that he will meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. It gave no other details.
Rubio listed the possible Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement among the current U.S. administration’s foreign policy accomplishments when he spoke during a cabinet meeting at the White House chaired by President Donald Trump. The U.S. State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, would not say what makes him hopeful about such a settlement.
“We’re excited about the multitude of arrangements and ceasefires and changes that we’ve been able to be involved in,” Bruce told a news briefing later in the day. “The Secretary noted that for a reason, and when we have some more details for you I’ll get it to you.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan finalized a bilateral peace treaty in March. Baku has since made its signing conditional on a change of the Armenian constitution which it says contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan. A senior aide to Aliyev repeated this precondition in a newspaper interview published earlier this week.
Baku also wants Yerevan to open a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through a key Armenian region, Syunik. Pashinian’s government has rejected, at least until now, any arrangement that would call into question full Armenian control over that transit route.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed over the weekend that Yerevan is now more open to accepting Azerbaijani demands. Erdogan met with Pashinian in Istanbul on June 20.
The Trump administration reportedly proposed in late May that Armenian border and customs checks for the transit of people and cargo to and from Nakhichevan be outsourced to an American company. The Armenian Foreign Ministry has not denied this.
Congratulating Trump on America’s Independence Day on July 4, Pashinian expressed confidence that the United States will make a “fundamental contribution to establishing long-awaited peace and stability” in the region.