US Secretary of State: meeting of Azerbaijani, Armenian FMs in Tbilisi a “positive step”
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili also held meetings with the Azerbaijani and Armenian ministers on Saturday. Photo: GettyImages.
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United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Sunday called the inaugural meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers, Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan, in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi as a “positive step” for regional dialogue.
In his tweet, Blinken called direct dialogue “the surest path” to resolve differences between the two sides in the region.
.@bayramov_jeyhun and @AraratMirzoyan took a positive step today, meeting in Tbilisi. Direct dialogue is the surest path to resolving Azerbaijani and Armenian differences.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) July 16, 2022
The meeting between Bayramov and Mirzoyan came amid the Georgian Government's Peaceful Neighbourhood Initiative for the South Caucasus, a platform for facilitating talks between the regional states.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili also held meetings with the Azerbaijani and Armenian ministers on Saturday.
Darchiashvili said the meeting between Bayramov and Mirzoyan meant Georgia was playing an “important role” in ensuring peace and security in the region, and highlighted the role of Garibashvili in the creation of the mediation platform.