Azerbaijan-Armenia: Peace Is 'Within Reach,' Blinken Says

The top U.S. diplomat said on Monday that his country has 'invested intensely' with its own diplomacy in trying to help bring Azerbaijan and Armenia to a peace agreement, which he described as "achievable," TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"I think that [the peace agreement] that's something that really is within reach. I was speaking just about a week ago to President Aliyev on this.  I think that's achievable," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Washington.

The U.S. efforts have been done "in very close collaboration, coordination with the European Union," Blinken told an audience at Brookings Institution, a leading think tank in Washington, D.C.

The Secretary also said that the peace agreement "is manifestly in the interests of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the broader region."

He went on to elaborate,   "There is an extraordinary opportunity, potential to realize a peace agreement between the countries that ends decades of conflict and actually creates in the region, I think, a tremendous opportunity for economic conductivity, for economic growth, for connecting countries, both east west, north and south. Azerbaijan has a critical role to play in that."

He concluded: "So we're attuned to the challenges... We're also very focused on some of the opportunities and the opportunity is real."

Blinken also was asked  about Georgia and its foreign agent law.

"We and many other countries have not only expressed our deep concerns about it, especially its passage, we've taken action to manifest those concerns. And I think you're likely to see more of that. I think it's clearly antithetical to the European direction that Georgia wants to take and that clearly the majority of the Georgian people want to take," he said.