The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan, are reportedly headed for Washington D.C. next week to meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Turan reported.

No details about the upcoming trilateral meeting have been publicly revealed yet, and the US State Department did not offer any comment.

However, Ned Price, the Department's spokesperson, had told  Turan that Washington remained "committed to Armenian-Azerbaijan peace and negotiations between the two countries."

"We will do what it is we deem most useful to bring about the cause of lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan," Price said early this week when asked about potential communications between the secretary and foreign ministers.

For long-time South Caucasus watchers, such as Richard Kauzlarich, who served as Bill Clinton's ambassador to Azerbaijan (1994–1997), the event in DC  "sends a message to Putin that the U.S. is still engaged in the South Caucasus."

Washington wants to "end the carousel of forum shopping Armenia and Azerbaijan engage in to avoid face-to-face negotiations," Kauzlarich said.

Asked about Washington's objectives in hosting the next talks, Kauzlarich reiterated: "I'm not sure what the US objectives are other than signaling Moscow and pushing the parties to get off the forum-hunting carousel and resume direct talks leading to a peace agreement."

As per Kauzlarich, the outcome of the recent meeting in Sochi, Russia, was unclear, but it is clear that Putin did not get what he wanted from either side.

"I doubt the Washington meeting will change anything out of Sochi," he concluded.

The Washington talks will also showcase the Biden administration's efforts and leadership on the eve of a congressional hearing in which the State Department's Caucasus negotiator Philip Reeker and Assistant Secretary Karen Donfried will testify publicly.