The United States senior advisor for the Caucasus Louis Bono visited Yerevan on Thursday and met with various government officials, among them Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan.
The two reportedly discussed the latest developments in the process to normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as approached to key issues of the draft peace treaty, around which negotiations were held as recently as this month when Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov, met in Astana, Kazakhstan.
According to a press statement, Mirzoyan emphasized the importance of adhering to the commitments expressed by the top leaders of both countries regarding the mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration.
Bono was also briefed about the agreements reached during the recent meetings of the border delimitation commissions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. That agreement, initiated on April 19 and essentially codified last week, resulted in Yerevan ceding four villages in the Tavush Province to Azerbaijan, without a reciprocal mandate on Baku.
This decision by the Armenian government has sparked the “Tavush for the Homeland” movement, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who has called for Pashinyan’s resignation and is planning a rally on Sunday.
According to the statement, Mirzoyan and Bono exchanged ideas on the issues of unblocking regional transit connections..
“Minister Mirzoyan reaffirmed Armenia’s consistent approach to implementing the process based on well-known principles: sovereignty, jurisdiction, reciprocity and equality,” the statement said.
Bono also met with Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan and National Security Chief Armen Grigoryan (no relation), with whom he discussed similar topics.
This was second visit by a high-level U.S. official to Armenia.
Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency David Cohen visited Yerevan on Tuesday and held meetings with government officials, among them Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
In a short press statement following the meeting, Pashinyan’s office said “Armenia-US bilateral, as well as international agenda matters were discussed,” without elaborating.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. is considering providing more assistance to Armenia.
“We are looking at a series of requests from Armenia to see what we can do to strengthen even more our support and cooperation with Armenia,” Blinken said, in response to an question by Rep. Jim Costa, a Democrat representing California’s San Joaquin Valley.
Blinken added that Washington already promised last month $65 million in additional “development assistance” to Armenia.
“We’ll be moving forward, I think, in a number of different areas. Prime Minister Pashinian has done an extraordinary job leading his country in very, very difficult times,” Blinken said.