During a press briefing on January 3, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said Washington is committed to facilitating direct Armenia-Azerbaijan talks on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Here’s the text of the exchange.

Q: Thanks so much. And lastly, on Armenia-Azerbaijan, when the Secretary brought the foreign ministers together here in this town, you were – expressed hopes that the ministers will meet again. And there were some hopes that they would also maybe sign some agreement until the end of the year. Do you have any disappointment on your end that the talks went nowhere? The ministers, in fact, hadn’t even met in December. And can you just give us sort of like bigger picture of what we should be raising for – are there concerns that talks will go nowhere, and the sides are back to the confrontation again?

Price: Well, we continue to maintain our commitment to promoting a secure, stable, democratic, prosperous, and peaceful future for the South Caucasus region. We continue to engage bilaterally with likeminded partners like the European Union and through international organizations like the OSCE to facilitate direct dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia to find solutions to all outstanding issues relating to or resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

As you know, there were a couple of occasions where the Secretary himself had an opportunity to bring together his partners, his counterparts, from Armenia and Azerbaijan. We did so once here in Washington at Blair House late last year. We did so once in New York City on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September. We will continue to do what, in our estimation, has the best prospects of moving forward that vision of a secure, stable, democratic, prosperous, and peaceful South Caucasus region. We, of course, want to see the parties make progress themselves. It is not for us to prescribe what a comprehensive solution to this conflict looks like. That is the hard work that the parties themselves will have to do.