U.S. Aims To Invite Azerbaijan, Armenia To NATO Event, As O'Brien Headed To Baku With 'Clear Messages'

The Biden administration is planning to invite Azerbaijan and Armenia, along with other NATO partners, to attend partnership events at the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, where they will have a chance to discuss regional cooperation as well as the efforts to conclude a peace agreement among themselves, TURAN's Washington correspondent has learned from two sources familiar with the matter.

While it's not entirely clear whether the invitations have already been extended and/or accepted, officials in Washington believe that the forthcoming leaders-level NATO meeting, which will take place in the U.S. capital in two weeks, would be "a wonderful opportunity that is too good to miss," as one of the sources put it to TURAN.

The move comes as the State Department announced on Wednesday that it was sending its chief diplomat for Europe and Eurasia to Baku this week to discuss strengthening bilateral relations and to emphasize Washington’s commitment to the peace process.

Assistant Secretary James O’Brien will arrive in Baku tonight. This will be his third visit to the South Caucasus in just six weeks, after traveling to Tbilisi (May 14) and Yerevan (June 10).

When asked by TURAN about the reasons to conduct these visits separately, State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller told a Wednesday briefing that the assistant secretary "regularly travels there."

"We continue to engage in diplomacy to resolve a number of the outstanding issues in that region; that’s something we’ve been working on for time," Miller explained.

O’Brien himself was also asked about his trip to Azerbaijan during a Congressional panel Wednesday afternoon held by the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee.

"We are very clear with President Aliyev that this is a time to make peace," he told lawmakers when asked what message he would be delivering in Baku.

O’Brien went on to elaborate, "It's a matter of, not just Azerbaijan, which is hoping to be respected as a global leader when it hosts the Conference of Parties on Climate Change. But it's a matter for that entire region and for Central Asia. All of those countries now export to the world only through China or Russia. For them to have a path out, they need to work through Azerbaijan."

He continued: ".. One road goes through Georgia to the Black Sea, but another potentially much larger road would go through Azerbaijan, Armenia and Türkiye. And in that regard, we need a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, to put an end to the war and the horrible conflict that has existed since the 90s.

And our message is it's time to make peace. And it's only in that context that we can resolve many of the issues of the war."

O’Brien also said that he will talk to Aliyev about the importance of respecting human rights. "That's a regular topic of conversation, including Secretary Blinken with him and just recent days, and I look forward to taking up that conversation with him as well," he concluded.

During his latest call with Aliyev last week, Blinken had also underscored the significance of concluding a peace agreement "without delay," as the State Department put it in its readout. "He reiterated the United States remains willing to support further engagement in any way useful to the parties," the Department said.