US is working to drive Caucasus nations away from Russia: State Dept.

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
14 Sep 2023 22:44

A senior State Department official said in a Senate hearing that the United States is working to rebalance relations in the Caucasus region to "its favor".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov (R) on 1 May 2023 in Washington (Social media)

The United States is actively working to "rebalance" the nations in the Caucasus region and steer them away from Russia, the Acting Assistant Secretary at the State Department Yuri Kim said on Thursday.

"We are working hard to rebalance that in our favor," she said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Kim highlighted that relations between Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and other countries in the region with Russia are heavily influenced by geography and history.

"It is not just a history of a few years and Soviet years. It is generations and centuries here," she added.

The official claimed that Moscow failed to fulfill its obligations to maintain peace in Nagorno-Karabakh through its peacekeeping mission deployed in 2020 after an Armenian-Azeri war.

"That is part of the reason why you are seeing the Armenians beginning to question that relationship."

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview earlier this month that Moscow failed to carry out its mission under the November 2020 tripartite truce agreement, adding that he believes Russia is exiting the region.

Responding to his statement, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stressed that Russia remains an absolutely integral part of the region and "cannot go away somewhere," adding that Russia "cannot abandon Armenia."

"Russia continues to play a consistent and critical role in stabilizing and deconflicting the situation in this region. And we will continue to play this role," Peskov said.

In an interview with Politico published on Wednesday, Pashinyan officially acknowledged that his country recognizes the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as part of Azerbaijan's sovereign territory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed limitations earlier this week on Russia's involvement in Nagorno-Karabakh following Yerevan's public recognition of Azerbaijan's claim to the Armenian-majority region.