US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called for lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

He said he was encouraged by the lack of fighting in the past few days following an escalation between the two sides that threatened to derail the fragile peace process between them, AFP reported.

"We are encouraged by the fact that the fighting has stopped and that there have been no hostilities in recent days," said Blinken, who received at his request for the first time his colleagues from Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov.

Azerbaijan criticized Nancy Pelosi's statements regarding the conflict with Armenia

Blinken said he had spoken with the leaders of both countries and clarified that they were ready to reconcile.

"There is one path to lasting peace that will resolve differences," Blinken said, pleading for active diplomacy to be the best solution for all.

The meeting between the three diplomats took place in a large hotel in New York on the sidelines of the annual session of the UN General Assembly.

Nancy Pelosi condemned "Azerbaijan's illegal attacks on Armenian territory"

Arriving for the meeting, the Azerbaijani diplomat said he was open to discussions and said everyone should work for lasting peace, while criticizing "some Armenian provocations".

The recent clashes are the most intense since the war between the two sides for control of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. It killed 6,500 people and eventually forced Yerevan to cede territory to Baku.

Before that, the two countries had opposed each other again in the 1990s over Nagorno-Karabakh, in which more than 30,000 people died.

According to the Security Council of Armenia, over 200 Armenian soldiers were killed last week in the new escalation of the conflict, BTA recalls.

Anthony Blinken