Nancy Pelosi visits Armenia as Azerbaijan truce holds

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has arrived in Armenia, where a ceasefire has been held after an outburst of fighting with neighboring Azerbaijan that killed hundreds of troops from both sides.

Pelosi arrived in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, on Saturday.

She is the highest-ranking US official to travel to Armenia since the impoverished nation’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The United States Embassy said Pelosi’s visit will 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 respecting the dignity and worth of every person”.

Other US legislators accompanying Pelosi include Frank Pallone, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Congresswomen Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo.

Armenia’s Speaker Alen Simonyan told journalists that Pelosi’s three-day visit will “play a big role in ensuring our security”.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars – in 2020 and in the 1990s – over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated enclave.

The 2020 war killed more than 6,500 soldiers from both sides and ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire. Under that deal, Armenia ceded swaths of territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow deployed about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.

Russia is a military ally of Armenia and also strives for friendly relations with Azerbaijan.

Agencies