Pelosi and other US lawmakers visit Armenia as cease-fire holds : NPR
AP
YEREVAN, Armenia – A US congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Armenia on Saturday, where a ceasefire has been held for three days after fighting broke out with the neighboring country. Azerbaijan killed more than 200 troops on both sides.
The US embassy said the visit would include a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
On Friday, Pelosi told reporters in Berlin that the trip “is all about human rights and respect for the dignity and worth of every person.”
Other members of the US delegation include Representative Frank Pallone, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and congresswomen Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo.
The ceasefire went into effect on Wednesday night after two days of fierce fighting, marking the biggest outbreak of hostilities in nearly two years.
Armenia and Azerbaijan blamed the shelling, with Armenian authorities accusing Baku of unprovoked aggression and Azerbaijani officials saying their country was responding to Armenian attacks.
Pashinyan said at least 135 Armenians were killed in the fighting. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry on Friday said it had lost 77 aircraft.
The two former Soviet states have been locked in a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of Armenian-backed Armenian forces since the war’s inception. The secessionist war there ended in 1994.
During the six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan regained large swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and neighboring territories held by the Armenian army. More than 6,700 people died in the fighting, which ended in a peace deal brokered by Russia. Moscow has deployed about 2,000 troops to the area on a peacekeeping mission.