Georgia is playing an instrumental role in normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and recently hosted the two countries’ Foreign Ministers in Tbilisi to discuss stability and peace in the region. Georgia’s U.S. and European partners hailed this positive step towards lasting peace.
The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted the peace-building forum and underscored “its commitment to contribute, through joint efforts, to peace and stability in the region,” while the Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili separately highlighted Georgia’s commitment to “play its positive role… in a dialogue format that contributes to peace and stability in our region.”
Georgia committed itself to serving as a trusted interlocutor in the region, having already worked with its U.S. counterparts to mediate the release of 44 Armenian POWs from Azerbaijan in exchange for an Armenian landmine map, following the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken lauded the development, writing the two nations “took a positive step today, meeting in Tbilisi,” and stressed that “direct dialogue is the surest path to resolving Azerbaijani and Armenian differences.”
Josep Borrell, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy further welcomed the meeting and emphasized that the EU supports “all efforts” to make the region more “secure, stable, and prosperous” through dialogue.
The pair also held separate meetings with Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili. The Armenian Foreign Ministry stated after the meetings that the leaders discussed a wide range of issues aimed at “normalizing” relations between the two nations, while the Azeri side stressed the need to fully implement the Trilateral Statement for “building good neighborly inter-state relations” between the two.