At a press briefing yesterday, U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price said the Biden administration is “committed to promoting a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous future for the South Caucasus region.”

Here’s the transcript of the press briefing on Armenia-Azerbaijan relations and the Karabakh issue.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) from Azerbaijan (inaudible). My question is when will the (inaudible) also amendment to the Freedom Support Act be lifted from Azerbaijan?

MR PRICE: Well, we remain committed to promoting a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous future for the South Caucasus region. And we welcome, as you’ve heard from us before in the readouts from Secretary Blinken, the April 6 meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev in Brussels, including the positive momentum on preparations for peace talks and the formation of a bilateral commission on border delimitation.

As the Secretary emphasized in the calls he had with those two leaders the day before on April 5th, we continue to encourage further peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we reiterated – and the Secretary reiterated – that the United States stands ready to engage bilaterally and with likeminded partners, including through the role as an OSCE Minsk group co-chair to help the countries find a long-term comprehensive peace.

QUESTION: The same topic?

MR PRICE: Sure.

QUESTION: There’s a phone call between Deputy Secretary Sherman and her French colleague yesterday in which she discussed the South Caucasus, Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Now we have Lavrov a couple of days ago complaining that U.S. and France are not informing us about what they are doing. Are you guys deliberately shutting the door to Russia’s mediation efforts? And given everything Russia has done in Ukraine, do you think that – doesn’t that disqualify Russia in peacemaking efforts between Azerbaijan and Armenia?

MR PRICE: I can’t speak to the role that Russia might play in this. What I can say is that we stand ready to engage Armenia and Azerbaijan – again, bilaterally or with likeminded partners, including through the OSCE mechanism.

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