Blinken, Aliyev discussed Karabakh, Human Rights and Energy

Issues such as Nagorno-Karabakh, human rights, and energy were among the topics the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken touched upon during his Wednesday call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"The Secretary and President Aliyev discussed recent positive momentum and future concrete steps on the path to peace in the South Caucasus, including border delimitation and demarcation, opening transport and communication links, and the release of the remaining Armenian detainees," the State Department said in a readout of the call.

"Secretary Blinken reiterated the United States stands ready to help by engaging bilaterally and with like-minded partners, including through our role as an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair, to help the countries find a long-term comprehensive peace", the Department said.

The Secretary also highlighted the importance of increased respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and recognized the important role Azerbaijan continues to play in European energy security, according to the readout.

Ned Price, State Department spokesperson, responded to TURAN's Washington correspondent's questions about the call during the Department's daily press briefing Wednesday afternoon.

TURAN: I have seen the readout on the call between the Secretary and President Aliyev. One of the topics is human rights, and given that there've been several cases raised in the past couple of months here - most recently the case of journalist Aytan Mammadova, also an attack against human rights defender Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, and the arrest of opposition party leader Ali Aliyev - these are specific cases that, perhaps this call was a chance to be raised by the Secretary... Did the Secretary have a chance to raise specific cases or was it just overall about human rights concerns?

PRICE: I will leave the specific contents of the call to the call itself. As you noted, we did issue a readout. It was just last week, I believe, that we had a Strategic Dialogue, the U.S.-Armenia Strategic Dialogue. So Secretary Blinken’s discussion today with President Aliyev was an opportunity to discuss some of the positive momentum and the future concrete steps on the path to peace in the South Caucasus. That includes some of the issues we discussed with our Armenian partners last week: border delimitation and demarcation, opening transport and communication links, and the release of the remaining Armenian detainees.

He did reiterate, as you saw, that we stand ready to help by engaging bilaterally as well as with likeminded partners, including through our role as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, to help the parties find a long-term, comprehensive peace. He did, as you note, also highlight the importance of increased respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. That is something that we also had an opportunity to discuss with our Armenian partners last week.

TURAN: You mentioned positive momentum on the Karabakh issue. Is there any concern at all on your end that Russians might jeopardize whatever positive connection is going on, as they have done before?

MR PRICE: Forging what we are seeking to forge here, a long-term, comprehensive peace, happens to be in our interest. It also happens to be in Moscow’s interest. Moscow, of course, is a part of the OSCE Minsk Group as well.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.