Dialogue between Yerevan and Baku is key to achieving lasting peace in the South Caucasus, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said ahead of the second day of a U.S.-hosted meeting of delegations from Armenia and Azerbaijan aimed at reaching "lasting peace" in the region.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and their delegations resumed the meeting on May 2, an Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson told RFE/RL's Armenian Service, as Washington spearheads efforts to quell long-standing tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Dialogue is key to reaching a lasting peace in the South Caucasus region," Blinken tweeted on May 1 as the talks opened. The tweet included photos of Blinken warmly greeting Mirzoyan and Bayramov.
Tensions have flared in recent weeks over a checkpoint installed by Azerbaijan on a key road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inside Azerbaijan populated mostly by ethnic Armenians.
After the talks got under way on May 1, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Washington is optimistic that peace and stability between Armenia and Azerbaijan can be achieved.
"The secretary believes that direct dialogue is key to resolving issues and reaching a lasting peace," Patel added.
No details were released after the first day of discussions, which are being held at a new State Department facility in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington. U.S. officials familiar with the negotiations described the discussions as "constructive" in comments to reporters. The talks are expected to last several days.
Arman Yeghoyan, chairman of the European Integration Committee, said the negotiations cover the entire spectrum of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.
Yerevan has the highest possible expectations from the negotiations, said Yeghoyan without elaborating.
The Kremlin responded to the talks by saying any effort to resolve the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is welcome but the basis of any long-term solution should be a Russian-brokered peace agreement signed in 2020.
There is "no alternative" to that deal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on May 2.
"For the moment, there is no other legal basis that would help a resolution," Peskov added. "There is no alternative to these trilateral documents," he told reporters in Moscow.
Armenia says the checkpoint, set up on April 23, is a violation of the 2020 Moscow-brokered cease-fire. Azerbaijan said it established the checkpoint in response to what it said were Armenian weapon supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh. Yerevan denies that charge.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh -- in 1990 and 2020 -- and regularly clash over the territory.