Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington on May 4
Azerbaijan will not participate in a planned meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan scheduled for November 20 in Washington.
The Azerbaijani foreign ministry reacted angrily to a statement made by James O’Brien, the Assistant Secretary of State on Eurasian affairs, who signaled, during a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, that Washington’s ties with Baku have cooled since Azerbaijan’s attack on Artsakh in September.
“We’ve made clear that nothing will be normal with Azerbaijan after the events of September 19 until we see progress on the peace track. So we’ve canceled a number of high-level visits, condemned the action,” O’Brien said, adding that the State Department will not seek a waiver of Section 907 “until such time that we see improvement.”
Baku accused Washington of committing “mortal sins,” calling O’Brien’s statement “one-sided and biased,” as well as “counterproductive, baseless, and unacceptable,” and a blow to Azerbaijani-American relations.
In the strongly-worded statement, Baku also accused O’Brien, personally, and the entire U.S. diplomatic apparatus of ”ignoring the main issue that led to Azerbaijan’s actions,” referring to Azerbaijan’s attack on Artsakh in September.
Official Baku has taken a defensive tone toward the U.S. and Europe. It condemned France, last week, for supplying arms to Armenia, per an agreement signed between Paris and Yerevan last month.