Istanbul Meeting Was 'At Working Level', And 'Not Secret', State Dept Says

Washington D.C./05.10.23/Turan:    The United States on Wednesday confirmed reports that a rare meeting occurred between Russian, EU, and American officials in Istanbul on September 17, just two days before Azerbaijan's military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

When pressed by TURAN's Washington correspondent, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a daily briefing that the meeting was "at the working level" and "not a secret".

"... [A]s you know as someone who’s covered these issues for some time, we engage with stakeholders and interlocutors in the region quite regularly, and the meeting in Istanbul on September 17th came together to address specifically urgent humanitarian issues and the provision of potential humanitarian aid in Nagorno-Karabakh. That’s what that meeting was about," Patel explained.

But broadly, he said, the U.S. "remains deeply engaged" in the situation and "we continue to be committed to helping the parties achieve a lasting peace in the South Caucasus,"

The deputy spokesperson refused to get into the specifics when pressed by TURAN about the initiator of the meeting.

According to him, the issue of humanitarian needs in the Nagorno-Karabakh region was the scope and the context of the discussions: "I would not expand it or overinterpret this to mean anything else."

In the meantime, when speaking about the situation around the conflict, Patel said that the U.S. has "continued to be deeply concerned."

He went on to elaborate, "We’re of course concerned by the situation after the recent hostilities, and it has resulted in over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing the Nagorno-Karabakh region into Armenia, and we’re closely monitoring the situation on the ground.  Of course, we continue to be concerned and [are] paying close attention to the humanitarian impacts. That’s why – part of the reason why this meeting had been taking place."

TURAN also asked Patel about the forthcoming proposed Karabakh talks in Granada.  "We note that President Aliyev will not participate in the proposed meeting in Granada," he said.  

He continued: "And we’ve consistently been clear though that dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan is essential to resolving this longstanding conflict.  This is something that the Secretary [Blinken] and others here continue to be deeply engaged on and we will continue to work on this."

Alex Raufoglu