After steering clear of the conflict for weeks, the Trump administration on Friday plans to focus on the ongoing fighting between two strategic Caucasus neighbors, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as the two nations’ foreign ministers plead their cases in separate meetings in Washington.
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo was scheduled to receive the two senior officials in sessions at the State Department, the first public efforts by the U.S. to intervene in the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan. Negotiations led thus far by Russia have failed to halt the bloodshed in a conflict that could swiftly engulf much of the region.
“I’m anxious to hear from them, what they’re seeing on the ground, and how we might get closer to what it is we think is not only in the United States’ best interest, but in each of their countries’ best interest as well,” Pompeo said in a press briefing earlier this week.
Pompeo will first see Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, followed by Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan.
President Trump has shown little interest in getting involved in the messy conflict, which has also drawn in NATO ally Turkey in support of Azerbaijan. Armenia has a defense alliance with Russia — which is often at odds with Turkey internationally — and is backed by an enormous Armenian diaspora in the U.S.
Trump’s indifference has been criticized by his election rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, who accused the president of ceding leadership to Moscow and failing to defend civilians in the region, including a sizable population of Armenian Christians.
“Inexplicably, the Trump administration has been largely passive and disengaged … even as the region goes up in flames,” Biden said in a statement last week.
Foreshadowing how a Biden government would handle the crisis, Biden called on the U.S. to hold robust talks aimed at a political settlement between the two countries. Biden said it is important to make clear that a military solution is not tenable, to stop “coddling” Turkey and to warn Turkey and Iran to stay out. Iran borders both Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Trump in recent months has stepped up his administration’s international diplomacy, such as seeking to improve ties between rival Balkan nations Serbia and Kosovo, and shepherding the diplomatic opening between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
Mediation over Nagorno-Karabakh seems unlikely to produce an enduring resolution.
Ahead of Friday’s meetings, Pompeo did not offer concrete proposals for what the administration might envision as a solution to the conflict, which dates back decades, if not centuries. U.S. officials demanded neighboring powers halt any transfer of weapons or mercenaries into the battle zone, but have not publicized any diplomatic plan.
Even before Friday’s meetings, Pompeo seemed to tip the U.S. hand in favor of Armenia, a majority Christian nation, against largely Muslim Azerbaijan.
“We’re hopeful that the Armenians will be able to defend against what the Azerbaijanis are doing, and that they will all, before that takes place, get the cease-fire right, and then sit down at the table and try and sort through ... what is a truly historic and complicated problem set,” Pompeo told a radio interviewer Oct. 15 in Atlanta.
Analysts say Russia might actually be interested in prolonging the conflict as a way to remind countries of their dependence on Russian-controlled supply lines of oil and gas.
“Until now the United States has taken a back seat,” said Margarita Assenova, senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington think tank that specializes in Eurasia. “More U.S. action would provoke Russian action. The United States could end up with a very hot potato.”
The fighting that erupted in late September has claimed the lives of scores of civilians and military fighters, according to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and is considered some of the deadliest in years. The conflict dates to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nagorno-Karabakh is a large region within what are today’s borders of Azerbaijan but with an ethnic Armenian population of roughly 150,000.
“Our view remains, as does the view of nearly every European country, that the right path forward is to cease the conflict, tell them to de-escalate, that every country should stay out, provide no fuel for this conflict, no weapons systems, no support,” Pompeo said.
Most negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh area have been led by the so-called Minsk Group, a diplomatic effort formed in 1992 and co-chaired by the U.S., Russia and France. But it has failed in providing a resolution or even a durable cease-fire, diplomats said.
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