The U.S. State Department said peace talks between diplomats from Armenia and Azerbaijan held outside Washington since Sunday are expected to conclude Thursday. 

In a statement, the department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken will take part in a closing session of the bilateral talks between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov shortly before 2 p.m. Washington time. 

The two sides have been meeting at a state department diplomatic facility in Arlington, Virginia. 

The talks were convened as tensions between the neighboring, former Soviet republics increased in recent months over Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor, which is the only land route giving Armenia direct access to the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh. 

In a telephone briefing, a senior State Department official, speaking on background, told reporters Monday the United States expects the talks to conclude with “commercial movement of goods” to start soon in the blocked Lachin Corridor. 

The official said, “About Lachin, we have been very clear throughout the last few months about the importance of ensuring the free movement of commercial and humanitarian traffic and people through the Lachin Corridor between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. We continue to engage in those discussions.” 

Early Monday, Blinken held separate meetings with the Armenian foreign minister and his Azerbaijani counterpart. 

Monday’s meetings occurred after Blinken’s call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday, when the top U.S. diplomat reiterated Washington’s call to reopen the land route “to commercial and private vehicles as soon as possible.” 

The State Department had voiced “deep concern” that Azerbaijan’s establishment of a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor undermines efforts for peace talks. 

A representative from Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Mirzoyan’s working visit to the United States is to discuss “the agreement on normalization of relations” with Azerbaijan. 

The two countries have had a decades-long conflict involving the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is inside Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. 

The Lachin Corridor allows supplies from Armenia to reach the 120,000 ethnic Armenians in the mountainous enclave and has been policed by Russian peacekeepers since December 2020. 
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