(Ulviyya Asadzade – RFE/RL) Sandwiched between Iran and Russia and shaped by more than three decades of conflict, Armenia and Azerbaijan received rare high-level attention from Washington this week as US Vice President JD Vance visited both countries — a trip analysts said underlined American influence in a region that Moscow has traditionally regarded as very much home turf. The visit saw economic deals in both countries and sought to cement the US-brokered peace deal between them. There was also controversy when Vance’s X account posted and then deleted a tweet referring to World War I-era mass killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. “Russia is weakened because of its failed invasion of Ukraine,” Richard Giragosian, founding director of the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan, told RFE/RL. “The vice president actually had deliverables — practical agreements with both Armenia and Azerbaijan — which made this more of a US planting of the flag in the region, a message to Russia,” he added.
Vance’s Caucasus Trip ‘Plants Flag’ With Economic Deals Amid Genocide Controversy
