Rubio spoke of a “real risk” of such escalation when he testified before Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and answered questions from two of its pro-Armenian members. One of those lawmakers, Democrat Jim Costa, called for a permanent end to any U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan.
“We have not made a determination on that yet because what we are focused on now is getting them to agree to a peace agreement that does not cause them to invade a neighboring country, Armenia,” replied Rubio. “We would like to prevent that from happening. The President [Trump] is very committed to preventing wars.”
“And we have tried to outline to both sides, especially the Azerbaijani side, the tremendous benefits that would come from signing a peace deal and not engaging in a war that we would find to be destructive, counterproductive and the last thing we need right now in the region,” he said.
“Our teams have been very engaged in that regard in trying to make something come about and preventing armed intervention there,” Rubio told another lawmaker, Chris Smith. He did not shed light on the U.S. efforts.
Rubio praised the two South Caucasus nations on March 14 the day after they announced that they have bridged their remaining differences on the text of the draft Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty. Baku makes the signing of the treaty conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution. It has also set a number of other conditions for peace.
Those include a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through a key Armenian region. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev renewed in January his threats to open such a corridor by force.
Rubio spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian by phone later in March amid what many in Armenia saw as the increased risk of an Azerbaijani attack. According to the U.S. State Department, the two men agreed that “escalation of any form in the South Caucasus is unacceptable.”