Bryza hails Bayramov-Mirzoyan meeting as positive sign

The very fact of a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the United States is a very positive sign, Matthew Bryza, an international expert, board member of the Jamestown Foundation and former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, told Report.

He said the United States is an unbiased mediator in normalizing relations and the potential signing of a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia, while it is impossible to entrust the mediation to Russia, which is at war now, or France, which has taken sides.

Bryza noted that the governments of both countries are committed to peace, but there are other factors that prevent Baku and Yerevan from establishing relations.

According to him, Armenian PM Pashinyan faces difficult times with the opposition, which calls him a traitor for his desire to establish peace with Azerbaijan. In addition, there are a lot of people in Armenia and in the Armenian diaspora abroad, who want the conflict to continue because they make money on it, Bryza noted. He added that they collect money from the diaspora under the pretext that Azerbaijan and Türkiye are a threat to them or with similar arguments.

At the same time, according to Bryza, the number of those who yield to this is decreasing because after the Second Karabakh War, the people in Armenia realized that the legends they were fed about the "great" country and the invincible Armenian army were lies.

Talks between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan were held in Arlington, Virginia, US, on May 1-4, 2023.